So I want to tell this legendary story about my family. My dad and his brother grew up about 200 yards through the pasture to their four first cousins. And all of my whole family and heads were going to be kind of lived right around each other. And my grandfather, his two best friends, were his two brothers in the laws.
And they did some fantastic things, but my uncle Burl, he never had kids, he was a welder, he worked offshore in the 50s and 60s and 70s. He built the original World Trade Center, he was one of the welders in that project. He was awesome, and he could do two things. Number one, he could build anything.
But number two, he also really loved his nieces and nephews. And one year, and my dad was a kid, probably eight, 19 years old, you know those things, when you go to a fair, and there's all of the swings that are on chains, and it rotates like a merry-go-round, and the swings kind of end up like getting up high. You know what I'm talking about? So my great uncles and my grandfather built one of these for the six cousins, and they had hooked up to an old tractor engine that was there.
It was a school, and every cousin, my dad will tell their story, and that they had, their seat was made for them, and one of my uncles built little name plates for each kid on the back of their seat, it was super, super cool. And so one day my dad and my uncle Mark, and they're about the same age, the families inside the house were all doing something, and they were the only kids that were there, they were the youngest ones out of the whole bunch anyway. And they decided they wanted to go ride the swing, and so they get over to the swing, and the hatch a plan. And what happens is Uncle Mark gets on his swing, and then my dad just grabs another swing, and like has it in one hand and stretches as far as he can, and manages to turn on the tractor engine, which was running the whole contraption with his foot, and then I can immediately run and jump, and just get on any swing he can.
They thought this way, they wouldn't have to bottom the adults, they'd get to do their thing, get to have fun, and it weren't at first. But the only problem was they didn't realize that when Uncle Burl built this thing, and gave every cousin their own swing, that he knew it had to be balanced, and he knew that it also meant that all six kids need to be on there for it to work right. And my dad and his uncle, and my dad and his cousin, I'm Uncle Mark, found this out the hard way. When they're about 30 seconds into this thing, and two things began to happen.
Number one, all the extra additional swings spread flying around and hitting him in the head, all sorts of crazy stuff, sort of happening. Also, they weren't sitting on opposite sides of this thing, and they unbalanced, and so whatever was at the top that kept this thing connected, this thing started falling apart with them riding, and just throwing things everywhere, and it was beating them up, and they were hollering and screaming, because it was like a legitimate, dangerous situation. And finally, the adults in the house realized something was going on, they came outside, and they noticed that the two kids were about to die on this homemade redneck carnival ride, and they rushed over, killed the tractor engine. My uncle, Ervin went and got a crowbar and some stuff, and dismantled the thing that day.
So it never could be rode again. There's just, it's a fun story, and I finally laughed about a lot, but it's also a great lesson about balance, about the importance of balance, and to understand the dangers of when things aren't balanced, and what it can do for us. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm working on some time, in the same passage from John 15, and these are the words that Jesus told his disciples on their last night together. And at that time that we sometimes refer to as the last supper.
And inside of these last words of Jesus, we really see Jesus focusing in on things that he wants the disciples to know about what life is going to be like when he is gone. In chapter 15, which Marge read part of earlier just now, it's the abide part of these conversations. And we're gonna take a couple of Sundays to walk through this idea of what does it mean to abide with Christ, and how abiding with Christ affects us. And this week I want us to look at, what does it mean for us as individuals to abide with Christ, and how that affects our balance when things seem to be chaotic.
And next week we're gonna look at the same passage of scripture, but think about it through, the understanding of the abiding presence of Jesus Christ is with us as a community, and how it changes our relationship to the spaces that we inhabit. But the bottom line of both of these weeks is really about us gaining a better understanding of the presence of God, and how the presence of God brings us to a place of trust and obedience. So the presence of God provides more clarity than anything else. The presence of God balances when everything else is trying to topple us.
So if we think back to what Marge read for us earlier, we've got to start by talking about this whole vine vine vineyard analogy. Now it's a lot bigger than we might anticipate. The second that Jesus starts talking about it, his disciples are just instantly clued in to a much bigger conversation. Did you watch the Super Bowl?
Are you one of those people that just watches it for the commercials? Like I hate to admit it, but that's kind of where I am. I normally don't care that much about the football game, but I was over at some church members house, I was there watching it, and I'm sitting there not kind of paying attention. Then all of a sudden the TV, I see the cable news channel 10 logo.
And I get so excited, my whole being began to perk up, because I knew that that Wayne's world was coming on. And I'm sitting there watching this commercial, and you can watch the Jack and the ass of Jack and the mountain. I had the biggest smile on my face the whole time, because the second I saw that new channel 10, I was brought into a familiar narrative that I knew, and it made me so happy to be there in just that familiar emotional space. The second that Jesus brings up this vine and vineyard thing, the disciples are transported into that space.
They're transported to a space of the story of God and his people that have been going on for hundreds of years that is all throughout scripture. And the story line is about the careful planting of God for the perfect place for his people, and all the things that he did to do this. Psalm 80, verse 89 says this, You brought us from Egypt like a grapevine. You drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land.
You cleared the ground for us, and we took root and filled the land. But the vine vineyard thing is also a metaphor for how God's people had failed to live into the balance of God's power and his faithfulness. And all these things that God did is an expectation of a harvest, an expectation of his people providing fruit. And we go to the prophet Isaiah, though we read this, now I sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard on a rich and fertile hill. He plowed the land, he cleared its stones, and planted it with the best vines. In the middle of it, he built a watchtower and carved a wine press into the nearby rocks. And then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes with the grapes became bitter.
You know, this level of familiarity that disciples had when Jesus began speaking. And one of those intimate spaces they had probably experienced that they saw the joy and the excitement of what this whole vineyard conversation was, but they also realized that part of it was this lament of Israel failing to do what they'd been called to do. So think back to those words that Marjorie, you know, they see life, they see hope, they see rejuvenation inside of those. This is the world that disciples are stepping into, that God promises, that God prepares, that we failed.
But what we almost see Jesus saying in this passage is this, hey, look, there's absolutely still the ability for you to live into this grand vision and desire of God, abide in me and I will abide in you. Jesus uses language of abiding, you know, we don't think we don't throw around that word too much. Unless you're a fan of the big Lebowski, you probably don't talk about abiding that much, but to abide means to lodge somewhere. It means to remain, to take up a habit and to exist somewhere in a permanent way.
It means to take root deeply into something, no matter what happens. Abiding is language of resilience. And think about this, for God to abide in us, means he has taken up a permanent location within us and with us. You know, in all of the spaces that we inhabit, God abides here with us.
He remains with us even when we struggle to remain with him. Ben Witherton says this, abiding is an ongoing, not already complete process. Now friends, we don't just abide once with God, but we continually abide with God. You know, abide with me and I will abide with you.
A couple of things just to think about. The first one is this, abiding means understanding that we cannot do anything without him. Let's cut to it. The presence of God, it is an elite possession to belong to a special few, but the presence of God is the most important benefit that is given to us by Jesus.
And God delights and desires for every single one of us to know the deep love and the deep clarity that comes from abiding in his presence. And he's not just asking us to do with him without him doing this with us first. God abides with you. God offers the fullest sense of who he is to each of us.
Now it might be a little crass, but, and y'all heard me say this before, no one wakes up and says, you know what? I'm gonna have a crappy relationship with God today. But instead we all too often unknowingly, we fail to actually abide. And this is not intentional, it's not deliberate.
We just don't do the things to make abiding happen from our end. We live in this halfway sort of a world. And we split our time thinking, you know, I can give half of my time and focus to God. I can give half of my time and focus to myself.
And that should be enough. He's got half of it over there. But what we find is, a, we slowly begin just taking up more and more and more and more of his time to think that we have to be under control of ourselves. And we begin to lose the focus.
And what does it mean for us to see and experience and feel the love of God in the presence of God with us? You know, we split our time thinking that will be adequate. But we end up getting less and less and less focus and attention to the presence of God. That's how we get frustrated and distant.
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt God was not with you? Now we get to that point when we fail to actually have a relationship. We may ask you this. I mean, times if you had a breakdown in a relationship because you simply haven't spent the time to actually have a relationship with that person.
Now then conversation this week with someone about that very thing. You know, when we fail to put time in, we're gonna fail to have a relationship. It's the same thing with God. We get as much as we put in.
It's about our levels of spiritual discernment and either capability or inability to live in God's world. Friends, we've gotta take personal responsibility for this. This is the question I'm asking myself right now. What am I leaving on the table by not fully abiding with God and seeing the benefit and fruit of what he has promised to me?
The second thing is this, there's a necessary reaction of abiding. So let's go back to that whole vineyard thing. You know, vineyards are cultivated carefully. I remember when I was living in Kentucky, I was cutting through a parking lot one day on campus in seminary and I looked down and there were six tomato plants growing in a foot of square ground between parking spaces.
You know, vineyards aren't like that. They don't like automatically accidentally spring up and bear fruit. There's something that has to be carefully and intentionally done and they're constantly and always be able to work on. You know the Old Testament is just chock full of the intentionality of God in preparing a place for his people to thrive.
And we have to treat this with the same level of intent. But as we realize we're treating this intent, we also don't forget the fact that God is doing every single thing he can at the level we're living in his presence for us to thrive in his presence. You know, in this passage we see a lot about the careful work of God. It says that he prunes off everything that doesn't produce fruit.
Now we can read that and kind of feel weird and awkward and scared and it sounds kind of judgy. Or we can look at the fact that God is saying, you know, I'm just gonna take and get rid of every single thing that's dead and that's distracting you. I'm gonna remove this worthless growth. I'm gonna do this for two reasons.
A, I'm gonna do this to allow you to see what I am doing and where I'm working. Number two, I'm going to remove everything that is sucking away nutrient towards things that you simply don't need. Now what are those things that we have in life that need to be removed in order for us to find greater focus? It's just time we'll let you know.
Go pop down to the message notes. We create these every single week and make the home sheet for you to think about stuff money through Saturday. We always put intentional discipleship actions in there. And so, you know, if this is resonating with you, go check out the home sheet.
Think about that through this week. Because this is about us saying, God's saying, I want to give you every single thing you need. Now God's pruning lets us focus on what actually needs to be focused on. Now this is the only time in the New Testament we see this language of pruning.
John is living now decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus, decades after Matthew, Mark and Luke have been written, have been circulating. Paul has been probably dead for 25 years this point in time. Here's John, the last living disciple as an old man far beyond his years. The only disciple to not be martyred.
They tried to, they tried to boil him in oil. That didn't kill him. They made him live on an island by himself for a long time. That didn't kill him.
So here he is now saying, this is the stuff that we need to know about living a long, long life with Jesus. Now John's being super specific here. Vineyards producing fruit are a symbol of balance against all that seeks to destroy life. From a spiritual standpoint, we talk about this metaphor.
It means that the people who are producing this fruit have allowed God to prune them, have weathered all of the storms. They have survived the drought. They have come through this space, it's faithful people who are now producing fruit, but also inhabiting the spaces all around them is righteous and fruitful. Now we're bringing this kind of deeper, more into our real life right now.
Let's begin this 20th century missionary who I'm currently absolutely obsessed with. Says that every one of us, and he learned this by spending decades as a missionary in India in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s. And this way he said, everyone encounters Jesus through three ways, the environment and the culture around them, through people and their assumptions of what faith is and through scripture, through the word of God. As we seek to try to find balance in a life, must let us balance as a Christian.
We have all sorts of things assaulting us. Now they seem to take away our attentiveness to things. We are marketed to right now, we are sorted in algorithms, and we are divided up more and more and more by the culture around us and attempted to create a greater tribalism through fear. Now this is what we talk about when we ask that question, is Jesus discipling you or is the world discipling you?
Now we come to God inside a homemade redneck out of balanced carnival ride, where we're tempting to turn things on and control things ourselves, and the swings are going all to the place and hitting us in the head, and the entire mechanism seems to be falling apart at our peril. You know the world tries to convince us that Jesus is not worthy of being our predominant narrative for things. People also try to use Jesus in the language of Jesus and distort it and attempt to try to control us or sway us to one side of the other, to draw more and more lines. And we get caught up thinking that life is bad, and God has abandoned us, but we realize that we've not just been discipled by the world, which is dangerous, but even more dangerous than sometimes we've been discipled by a false adhesion of who Jesus is.
What New began talks about is that the word of God opens us up to the presence of God in a way that truly not just changes us, but changes our outlook on things. I know from personal experience, very rarely, does someone come into a deep appreciation and engage with scripture and leave unchanged? Because the Bible, when we start to read it honestly and openly, it's going to assault and confront these cultural attempts and these false idolatrous attempts it gives us balance, it begins to make us think and realize, but also to recognize what the presence of God looks like because we have aligned ourself to it. When we begin letting scripture be that foundational thing, it normalizes the presence of God for us, it makes that part of our everyday life.
And so what we're going to do, starting next week is this we've never done before as a congregation, something we've wanted to do and the staff and our leaders realize this is the time to do it. We engage prayer and scripture together as a congregation in November in a deeply intentional way. I've loved hearing these stories that have moved out of people's lives and how that affected them. So this is what we're going to do though.
On Ash Wednesday, we're releasing a readings plan using the book of Psalms. It's the short daily reading. Every single morning, we do a couple of fun things about this. Number one, you'll see on way on Fat Tuesday, we're going to still call it that, no we're not a murderer, we don't do all the fun things this year.
On Fat Tuesday, we're going to release this reading plan and you're going to have access to that on a PDF, a paper download copy of that. But second, we're also going to produce an audio version of every one of these Psalm readings every morning. And so as you're going to the work, as you're getting ready, as you're doing whatever's part of your morning routine, you can listen to these and allow them to kind of speak and share over your life. But also you can read and engage with this because we believe there's something about all of us, even though we're still distanced physically on Sunday morning.
What does it mean for us as a congregation to be reading and to be praying and to be engaging the word of God, asking to see it and to see life in a clarifying manner, and we do this together. We do this in our own spaces that God has given us to inhabit and that we are linking ourselves supernaturally in the pursuit of his presence and what his abiding presence means for us. You know, this reading that we're going to do together, it creates a personal habitation for God in our hearts. And so closing, I just want to read short parable from Jesus in Matthew chapter four.
We talk about what happens when we begin to seek this balance as individuals. Matthew, Mark chapter four, says this, is he scattered it across his field some of the seed fell on a footpath and the birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock and the seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plant soon wilted under the hot sun since it didn't have deep roots, it died.
Other seed fell among thorns, it grew up and choked out the tender plant so they produced no grain. But still other seeds fell on fertile soil and they sprouted, grew and produced a crop that was 30, 60 and even 100 times as much has been planted. And Jesus said, anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. I want each of you, I want me in my own life.
I want us as a church together to see and to experience the compounding interest of the presence of God in our lives this next season as we come together. This is gospel multiplication that comes about by us realizing where and how we have been planted. The place is that God has provided for us. The ones that we see and understand, the ones we don't see yet and the ones we don't understand yet, but to see those and to take full advantage of the presence of God has been offered to us in a way that truly changes us and thereby changes everything around us.
God says, I will abide in you and you will abide in me. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much. God that you were always here with us.
God, I think of that prayer in the community liturgy where our love failed, your love remained steadfast. Jesus, you don't abandon us. And that has been your song, that has been your action throughout thousands of years that you were consistently coming to us, coming to your people and that you were creating fertile spaces for us to thrive. God, all you ask is for us to yield.
God, I realize the difference between our self and your will. God, I allow you to prune and order for us to thrive. God, I pray for fruits and I pray for fruit in a way that multiplies beyond our wildest imagine. I pray for visions of sustenance and providence here in our community and God alongside of those that your divine will coming inside of us and aligning out how you are asking us to fulfill your mission here.
God, I'm praying for those of us right now who feel like we are choked, who do feel like an abandoned vineyard. God, I pray for the openness of our hearts to your spirit in this moment. God, in our willingness for you to come and for us to experiencing you as a healing ball. God, thank you for even greater things.
And shall we pray. Amen.