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1 Mark Wheeler
John 15:1-5 06/02/2024
Biblical Pictures? – “Gardens” Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
Welcome to Worship, today, friends! It’s not officially Summer yet, but it is June! So, we trust that Summer is on it’s way! A new Season is about to begin! Lawns need mowing; weeds might require pulling; flowers and veggies demand tending; and everything craves watering!
What’s around the corner? Wildfires? Vacations? Trips to “the Lake”?
A new Sermon Series! Today we begin a new Series to carry us through June and July; a Series on Word-Pictures in the Bible – descriptions of God, ideas about God’s Church, images of what it means to belong to God, and depictions of how we demonstrate having been created Imago Dei!
At the very center of the Christian faith is the belief that there is no one like God! God is not a creature, God is the Creator!! Isaiah 6:1 calls Him “High and lifted up”! And Philippians tells us that this One who is above all, better than all, nothing like any other, stooped down to make Himself known to us finite and sinful creatures!
John Calvin it is said loved to describe God as a “nurse who bends low to lisp to a newborn.”
God demonstrates this aspect of His nature every time the Bible uses metaphors to convey His Message of Good News in a way we can understand. These metaphors help us understand God and live like we believe what we say we believe!
One of the many ways God shows Himself to His people is with the metaphor of Agriculture! This makes perfect sense because Israel was a people whose existence depended on the soil! Remember how God promised this Land to Israel? Especially after the generations of slavery in Egypt, after the 40 years in the Wilderness? The Promised Land they were entering was called The Land flowing with milk and honey!
More than just a way of life – the Land, the “Fertile Crescent Promised Land” was a sign of God’s blessing! God fulfills His promises to Abraham with the Fruit of the Vine, the City of Palms, the Fields of Barley, Bethlehem Ephrathah – House of Bread, Region of Fruit!
This is what we look at these next few months – and this is TODAY’s particular picture of God and God’s people! This is the “Garden o’ Feedin’”!
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Pastor Kathy calls us to worship, today, from the very first words of the Book of Psalms – listen for the botanic reference:
4 And our Prelude of Praise and Worship ––– #31 … Make a Joyful Noise –
5 Good morning Friends! Welcome to worship at Lidgerwood!! Shalom Aleichem! May the PEACE of Christ be with you!
Welcome, friends, from around the world, to this worshipping community!
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.
6 This morning our Chancel Choir leads us in worship with this beautiful anthem: “God Made Your Hands”
7 Children’s Message
8 Pastor Kathy opens our Prayer time in Confession and Thanksgiving
9 Gloria Patri
10-13 Praises, thanksgivings, adorations, concerns and prays [The Lord’s Prayer]
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15-17 Song of Devotion and Preparation to receive God’s Word – #442 – O Come to Me, the Master Said –
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On my first three trips to Israel, our Tour Guides each pointed out how green and lush and fruitful the valleys of the area around the Sea of Galilee were. And they were not wrong – bananas and citrus and dates and olives and tomatoes and mustard and grapes and oh so much more, grew every where! And, now this may simply be part of their Israel-Tourism spiel, they then all three told us that in 1947, the year before “Palestine” became “Israel” again, this land was either flooded and unproduceable or dried and dead with nothing growing! Their claim was that the fruitfulness of the land was a sign of God’s blessing that The Promised Land was back in the hands of God’s People!
All through the Old Testament, when the Israelites break their covenant with God, the result seems to be some kind of exile away from the Land of Milk and Honey – either through the famine when they move to Egypt, or through the Babylonian conquest and they were taken away by Nebuchadnezzar. But they weren’t simply in a different place, they lost the soil that produced for them the fruit of that land!
But even while in Exile, Isaiah prophecies God’s Promise to “raise up a shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1), one of the Christmas-Messianic prophecies. And we know that this “shoot from the stump of Jesse” is King Jesus, Jesse’s son, King David’s long-awaited great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Jesus! (Something like 27 “great”s there.)
And Jesus uses this agricultural metaphor as well – mustard seed faith, cursed fig tree, olive oil, seed sower, grapevine.
Let’s listen to this last example together, from Jesus in John’s Gospel, chapter 15 – hear the Word of God …. —-
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1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 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. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
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4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “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.
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Earlier in John’s Gospel Jesus has already called Himself the “Bread of Life”, an easy reference to the Old Testament Exodus story of Manna – both Manna – Bread from Heaven, and Barley and Wheat and Rye become agricultural metaphors.
This passage in John 15 directly points to the fruit of the vine of Communion. The Old Testament is filled with vineyard illustrations of God and His people – in fact from early on *THIS* was a symbol of God’s Chosen people and a piece of National Identity:
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Psalm 80, Jeremiah 2, Isaiah 5 and 27 all describe Israel as a grapevine, but we learn that Israel has become a grapevine that failed to bear fruit! Thus, the need for a “True Vine”.
Jesus says, “I am the True Vine, and my Father is the vinedresser … I am the Vine and you are the branches!”
What happens to the branches that stop bearing fruit? They get “cut off and thrown into the fire”; and the fruit-filled branches? They get “pruned” (or “cleaned”).
These words are meant to warn us: it is not enough to call ourselves good church-going-Christians; we need to actually live our faith deeply connected to our Savior – reading His Word, praying without ceasing, feeding the hungry, gathering in His name – living like we actually do believe the things we say we believe!
The branch that does bear fruit represents that kind of believer – united to Christ in tangible, practical and palpable ways!
John is not the only Gospel writer or the only New Testament author who uses this metaphor. Paul contrasts the “fruit of the Spirit” against the “fruit of the sinful nature”: sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness, orgies, etc; but the “fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Abiding in Christ, dwelling in the Word, Living in Jesus, means putting the ways of our human sinful nature to death! Picking up our cross and following Him! Paul says, “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires”! That takes discipline and devotion! But its rewards are the Fruit of the Spirit, and faithful following of Jesus every day! Walking by Faith leads to eternal life for that is how God loves us!
Our Call to Worship from Psalm 1 gives us good encouraging advice: Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.
We are just now getting our Garden o’ Feedin’ started – what would happen if we didn’t water it this summer? Right? Nothing will produce! No thing! Not a single thing!
Learning how to bear fruit is part of what’s behind what our Ezra 3 Design Team is working at! How do we grow in Christ? What does it mean to bear fruit? When are we abiding in Christ? When are we not?
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As we approach the Lord’s Table, come to Communion, enjoy the Eucharist, we approach the Table which holds the grains of the field and the fruit of the vine – this is Bethlehem Ephrathah, the House of Bread, the Land of the Fruit of the Vine! Receive Him and Believe this Good News.
I invite our Communion Servers to come forward. In our Church we recognize that there is no fence guarding this Table – it is open to all of receive Christ, who believe Jesus – and we invite you all to partake of the blessings of God’s presence made real in this sacrament.
24-26 Communion Hymn #776 – Let Us Break Bread Together –
27 Sacrament of Holy Communion –
28 Receive our tithes and offerings as symbols of our very lives and livelihood, given as response to Your life given for us! Bless it, and by it bless the world around us. In Christ’s name, Amen.
Offering (4449 N Nevada St., Spokane, WA, 99207; or Click HERE; or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)
29-32 Expedition Song #540 – Take Time to Be Holy –
33 Benediction:
May we Grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit. And give glory to God, today, and forever! Amen.
“May the Lord bless you and protect you; may the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”
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Announcements
- Breakfast Fellowship – Saturday, 9am, at Frankie Doodles
- Ezra 3 Design Team –
- Furnace Fundraiser
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- Potluck Lunch and LPC Stories – TODAY
- Spokane Indians Baseball – Tuesday, June 18 – sign up in the hallway, or on-line through the June Ledger
Resources:
Barrett, Matthew; “Agricultural Metaphors for thew Christian Life”; TableTalk; June 2019; Pp. 4-6.
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