Abiding in Jesus, Living in Him (15)

 

 

“…and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2b).

 

As we continue to ponder the pruning of our Father, let’s remind ourselves that His purpose in pruning is that we might be conformed to the image of His Firstborn Son and that this pruning need not have anything to do with sin. Because of our preoccupation with sin in much of the professing church, I cannot over emphasize this. Not only might pruning not have anything to do with sin, hopefully a time comes in our lives when it seldom has anything to do with sin.

 

Please understand that this is not making light of sin, it is rather highlighting the glory and power of salvation that Jesus Christ has brought to us; it is living in our inheritance in Jesus Christ. It is also learning to live in the Cross of Christ and in the Christ of the Cross.

 

“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10 – 11). Why do we insist on speaking as if we still are who we were instead of speaking and affirming of who we now are in Jesus Christ? Paul tells us not to do this!

 

There are things deep within our souls that require pruning, but which can only be touched as we know a deep and abiding security in Christ – otherwise we could not stand the pain and we would interpret the deep working of the Holy Spirit as rejection. These are mysteries, and while we may not understand them we can experience them in Jesus Christ.

 

“Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He because to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation…” (Hebrews 5:8 – 9).

 

Now friends, we know that Jesus was sinless (Heb. 4:15; 2 Cor. 5:21), and yet we see that there was a process, a journey, a pilgrimage of maturation and of learning obedience. In Philippians 2:8 we see that Jesus became “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Here we have the mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus was fully God and fully Man – we do not understand this. We can experience the Incarnation because we are joined to Jesus Christ; we share His Divinity and His Humanity – we share the unity of His Nature; but we really cannot understand these things and we speculate to our peril.

 

The immediate point is that if Jesus had a maturation process that had nothing to do with sin, then as we learn to live in the fulness of the Gospel – especially those dimensions we find regarding our identity in Christ (Romans 5:12 – 8:30) – that we ought to anticipate that the Father’s dealing with us, His pruning, is focused on the Person of Jesus Christ and our conformation into His image, rather than on a preoccupation with sin. Healthy plants are pruned to enhance their health! (The Lord willing, we are going to circle back and take another look at sin in a deeper dimension before we move on from our passage on pruning.)

 

We see the journey of obedience and maturation in Jesus Christ consummated in Gethsemane and on Calvary. “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done…And being in agony He was praying very fervently.” (Luke 22:39 – 46). “Father into Your hands I commit My spirit.” (Luke 23:48).

 

In John chapters 13 – 17, the Upper Room, Jesus draws us into deep koinonia with the Father, with Himself, with the Holy Spirit, and with one another. The love to which He calls us is a cruciform, that means that it looks like the Cross, it is rooted in the Cross, which is in the depths of the Trinity, and its manifestation is the Cross. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13).

 

Jesus speaks to us of knowing Him in the koinonia of His sufferings when He says, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you…If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you…an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is doing a service to God.” (See John 15:18 – 16:4).

 

The Cross is the great pruning shear of our heavenly Father, for in the Cross we learn that Christ is life and that life is Christ. In the Cross all that is not the image of Jesus Christ is removed, chisel and hammer stroke by chisel and hammer stroke.

 

When Paul writes, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” (1 Cor. 2:2) he is writing about our Way of Life; the Way we think and feel and imagine and speak and make choices and do things. This is the context of the statement, what precedes and follows the statement is all about Jesus Christ being our source of wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

 

Our glorious calling is to know Jesus, to share life with Jesus in His Cross; to share this life with one another, and to offer this life to the world.

 

“…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the koinonia of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (Phil. 3:10).

 

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20).

 

“But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal. 6:14).

 

There is no pruning apart from the Cross. There is no life in Christ outside the Cross. There is no spiritual formation not birthed and shaped by the Cross.

 

Friends, I don’t care if it is a book on marriage, on parenting, on pastoring, on church “growth”, on preaching, on spiritual gifts, on conflict resolution…on Christians in business, on “leadership” – if it isn’t centered on the Cross of Christ and the Christ of the Cross, we ought to question its Biblical roots.

 

It is the Lamb who has been slain who is seen in the heavens (Rev. 5:6), not a bunch of slick preachers and entertaining Sunday programs and self-centered books and boutique coffees and pastries that we can enjoy while our brethren elsewhere are suffering persecution for their witness for Jesus Christ…and while believers a few miles or blocks from us may be homeless or without food or a safe place to live.

 

The pruning of our kind heavenly Father means that we die not only to sin, but we die to ourselves – so that we might live for Christ and for others.

 

“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” (2 Cor. 5:14 – 15).

 

“…and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…”

 

“…Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27).