Tomorrow we are in John 15:9-17 and the Lord elaborates from last week: we are to abide in Him…and tomorrow He proclaims “Abide in my love.” His gift of love — the best love in life — is His way of keeping us in His life…it is our faith in Christ that knows how much we are loved. This love leads us and directs us. It is the way to live!

Come and receive the Lord’s love through Word and Sacrament!

We will also distribute a special gift to our moms!

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

Abide in My Love
John 15:9-17
Pastor Espinosa

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Alleluia! Christ is risen! [Response: He is risen indeed! Alleluia!] In Jesus’ Name. Amen. Last week we studied and received into our hearts the magnificent Gospel from the first part of John 15: Jesus is the vine, we are the branches. In that Gospel He commanded: “Abide in me.” The Lord is looking out for you dear Christian in revealing to you how to remain in life, not death; in the peace of God that He has won for you, not alienation and separation from the God of peace. And while we had a clue last week in terms of the signs that we do indeed abide – remain with and in – Jesus Christ namely, 1) His words remain in us (His life-giving teaching, most especially that you are cleansed and continue to be cleaned or pruned); and 2) The fruit, more fruit (15:2), and much fruit (15:5, the good works that God has prepared in advance for you to do), there is more to be said. We certainly praise God for these great signs and assurances…these are indeed great consolations that you abide in Christ the Life of the World. These are signs that the peace of God is in your life. We need such signs along the way, because life is very hard.

This past week I was in the hospital with one of our members who was anxious about her upcoming surgery so I shared with her Isaiah 26:3: “You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Going into the surgery, I compared our anxiety to the winds and waves that buffeted the disciples on the boat when they saw Jesus walking on water (Matthew 14:22f.), but when Peter had his mind and eyes stayed on Christ nothing else mattered. His fear from the wind and waves was canceled out and indeed for a short time, even Peter walked on water. The great encouragement though continues: even when in our sin we take our mind and eyes off of Christ and permit ourselves to be driven by the restless wind and waves of the world again (when the devil seeks to sift us like wheat), and we begin to sink, what did the Lord do? He rescued Peter and pulled him back up. So keep your mind and heart on Christ and if you begin to sink, know that the One who died and rose for you will lift you back up and then keep your mind and heart upon Him again (and this cycle of grace continues).

But our Lord Jesus loves us so much that He elaborates on this cycle of grace. He does not want you to be ambiguous or unclear about how you remain united with and connected to Him. We need to know this dear Christians. How easy it is for us to feel that God is far away and to feel as though we have no idea as to how to abide in Christ, to remain in His life for us.

He has won for you His peace. His blood covers your sins. God the Father now sees you as a forgiven and holy one in His Son: you have peace with God! We want desperately, however, to remain in this peace. We want desperately to remain in Christ our Savior.
This makes sense because our sin makes us insecure. It raises the worst doubts in us and tries to convince us that we are unable to go on. That is our sin is daily trying to pull us away from abiding in Christ and needless to say this is the goal of the evil one. So Christ your Savior pulls you close to Himself and says with the most compassionate love and mercy, “Abide in me.” But then our sin, the world, and the devil grab our attention and tries to yank us out of the Savior’s arms. This “tug of war” is the normal Christian life, so needless to say we need additional resources, more ammo in this battle, more encouragement, and great clarity about how we are going to in fact abide in our Savior so that we never leave Him; so that we are never pulled away from Him! This is what our Gospel today is for.

So Jesus continues His teaching for your great security and what he is doing is giving you a fortress of security. Going into John 15 the Lord had already assured you of peace. How is it that the Lord would even approach me, a terrible sinner? It is because He has brought peace through His blood. His blood covers your sins. Now you have peace. So in John 14:27 the Lord says:

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

This is the impetus behind knowing that the Lord gladly holds you with your warts and all; with your doubts and all of your struggles. In-spite of these and by covering these with His blood, you have peace with God, but He knows that you should have even more assurance in your abiding in Him. So in what follows from today’s Gospel in John 15:9-17…

1. Your peace is complemented with…
2. Love which is further complemented with…
3. Joy

Not just any love or joy mind you, but with a very specific love and a very specific joy. This is what our Gospel is about. And be clear, these give answer to, “Exactly how do I know that I abide in Christ?” Again we already know that this is partially answered through His words that abide in you and through the fruit, more fruit, and much fruit, but we need more and so He gives you more. He wants you to be confident in your faith Christian!

I hope you take this the right way. The sinful skeptic wants to criticize what has been said thus far, “What’s the matter, does God have trouble getting it right?” Don’t go there. There are actually good reasons as to why the Lord goes this extra step for us. Our good works – while being a sign of our abiding in Christ – can never be the basis for our abiding in Christ. We compromise our confidence regarding our good works, because how often we do other works that seem to cancel the good that we do? On top of that even our good works are grossly tainted with sin and in the end, in themselves, are as unclean rags. (Is 64:6) Furthermore, the words of our Lord are certainly efficacious and produce faith…we are to rejoice that His words abide in us, but how often we look away from His words and listen to other words…the words of our flesh which lure us not to live for God, but self; the words of the world which lure us to deeply desire things that will turn to dust; and the words of the devil which lure us to seek the things of pride and power…in our sin we permit words of death to cover the words of life.

These impact our peace. These make us restless. And when that happens, we doubt.

This is why our Lord takes the next step.

1. Not just His peace, but
2. His love, and not just His love, but
3. His joy

Why are these so important? Because dear Christian these put you in the life of Christ itself. The love and joy of the Lord will not permit us to be bystanders to the faith. The love and joy of the Lord will not permit us to treat the faith as this theoretical thing to be thought about and merely analyzed on a comfortable rocker on our front porch as we sip tea or lemonade. The peace of God and the actual presence of our Savior through His Word and Sacrament compel us to live. To be people of action who know the Lord’s action in and through us…our faith must be active; it can’t help but be and when this happens the Lord takes away time from the skeptic; takes away the doubt from the casual observer, but because the casual observer is transformed into an active doer. His or her peace is extended through love and joy.

In Christ,

Pastor