Andy Cornett | living in the new creation

endlessly captivated by the person and work of the resurrected Jesus

on truth and kings

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And we who now stand at the foot of the cross have to face the most searching questions because we, too, find it desperately uncomfortable to look at the face of God’s Image, the man, the king, and see there the perfect likeness of the maker and redeemer of ht world. We are so stuck in the system so Caesar – his swords, his coins, his gambling soldiers – that we too have a hard time recognizing truth of any kind, let alone speaking up for it We are so anxious to protect the philosophies upon which our modern works is built that we will do anything to declare that we have no king but Caesar, that when push comes to shove religion is just a private thing which musn’t affect the public sphere, even when Jesus is reminding Caesar’s representative that he only has power because god has given it to him. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why the church is in such pain at the moment, caught between ‘what is truth?’ on the one hand and ‘no king but Caesar’ on the other.

But the good news – and this is after Good Friday – is that this story, for all its searing challenge, remains the story of the scriptures and the power of God, and therefore of the glory and love of God … and if it is true that that love must transform our whole lives, our public life, our grasp of truth on the one hand, our dealings with Caesar on the other, this can only be if we are first grasped and transformed by that same love at the very deepest level of our personalities.

Tom Wright, from “Good Friday,” in The Scriptures, the Cross, and the Power of God: Reflections for Holy Week. 64-66.

nothing or everything?

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If you’ve read John 15:1-12, you’ve noticed that there are a few key pictures here that Jesus uses: gardener, vine, branches, pruning, fruit. Think about it.

  • Who is the vine? Who is the gardener? Who are the branches?
  • How are the branches related to the vine?
  • What are the branches supposed to do? How do they do that?
  • What happens to the branches that don’t bear fruit?
  • What happens to the ones that do bear fruit?

Get the picture? Branches that don’t grow fruit are cut off – dead, useless, good only for the fire. Branches that do bear fruit get … pruned: chopped up a bit by a skillful gardener in a way that makes them healthier. Stronger. More fruitful.

Look at it this way: a branch never goes up to a vine and says: “hey, let me be in you!” No! The vine always grows the branch first! Jesus always comes to us first and grows new life in us. And since we are “branches” in his “vine” – the question becomes … (1) how do we remain in him so that we can (2) bear the fruit that he desires?

Check yourself here: what do you think it means to “remain” in Jesus? (your translation might instead say “abide” or “live”). How do we do it?

I had a lot of great answers to this question for years – until I spent time on 15:10. Check it for yourself. Jesus says: you will remain in my love if you … keep my commands. His words “remain in us” when we actually do what he says. Keeping Jesus’ commands is how we remain in him, live in him, stay connected to him! Now what does he command us to do? Read 15:12, 17. (Or if you like emphasis, read John 13:14-15, 34; 14:15, 21, 23, 24 (the opposite), 15:10, 12, 14, 17 plus 1 John 2:5b-6, 3:24 … get the picture?)

Think with me: as we (1) keep his command to “love one another as he loved us,” we (2) “remain in him” and (3) he has promised that we will “bear fruit.” So what’s the fruit? It’s what the vine produces. The fruit is that we become the kind of loving person that he is.

Now what is Jesus’ point about our “bearing fruit (15:8)?” Our fruit [loving one another] shows the world that we are … Jesus’ disciples.

Do you see how radically simple and beautiful this is? We get it all so wrong: we think that our job is to do all these good things so that then God then loves us and approves us and lets us remain in him – “if I bear fruit then I get to stay in the vine!) – but that is so backwards! God loves us first – as I have loved you, Jesus said – and only then can we really love others and let that love be the evidence that we belong to Jesus, live in him and him in us.

Have you ever paused and thanked God for this? That he has loved us first … that he makes clear his command to us (love others as he loved us!) … and that he has promised to live in us.

Ask Jesus to live in and through you so you can love others and they will see that you belong to him. That is a prayer he can and will answer (15:7).

Read John 15:6 again. What does Jesus promise to those of us who try to live our daily lives without (“apart from”) him?

Those words really freak me out – because I know that a lot of the time, I’m trying to make it through the day and really do something, really be something … without Jesus.

Where I live in Florida, I’m surrounded by citrus trees: oranges, lemons, mangoes, limes – and those are just my neighbors. I know those branches that are dead or fallen off can’t produce anything. But man do I think I am different; I think I can really get though each day and be something amazing … apart from Jesus. And what do I hear him say to that? “apart from me, you can do nothing.” Nothing.

Can I press you on this for a moment? This is the whole point of the God’s great news: that in Jesus, we are united to God himself! The amazing love and unity that God enjoys in himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is now shared with us in the person of Jesus. Our relationship with God has gone from terribly “ruined” to gloriously “restored.” We now live in him and he enables us to go through life with him, loving like him.

I think the only way you can tell if you are “bearing fruit” (and therefore remaining in Jesus) is to ask yourself: am I becoming a person who loves more – or less? Better yet: do a “fruit check.” Ask someone who knows you well to give you an honest answer: are you becoming more loving – or less? Are your growing in the peace and joy that love brings?

Live connected to Jesus (remaining in him by keeping his commands) and he lives in and through y’all to love others. And the whole world knows it.

So which will it be? Nothing – or everything?
Live apart from Jesus by neglecting his commands … and nothing.
Remain in him by keeping his commands … and everything.

Believe it: as you live today and keep his commands, he is in you, with you, living through your very life.