‘Abiding in the Vine’ – Covenant Renewal Sunday 26/01/2025
A. Introduction – Each year at this time we hold our annual Covenant Renewal Service with the aim of ensuring our lives are connected to the true Vine – Jesus Christ. The metaphor, (word picture), of the vine and the branches speaks of an organic union between the believer and Christ. Jesus in verse 1 describes himself as the ‘true vine’, meaning genuine and trustworthy. Jesus is the final, real ‘vine’ as compared to Israel - the Old Covenant vine which was a type, and a foreshadowing the reality to come.
B. ‘Abiding in the Vine’ is vitally important for three reasons:
1. It is the key to living a fruitful life!
The word Abide, (NIV: ‘remain’), is repeated 10 times in verses 4-10, emphasizing the need for Christians to have a steadfast, personal relationship with the living Lord. In the words of The Message Bible: ‘Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you.’[1]
Jesus states in verse 5: ‘I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.’
Such a state of dependency involves us ‘listening to and following the Lord’ and requires in us an attitude of humility. N.B. This does not sit easily with a generation that has been taught that ‘we are our own makers![2]…
2. It is the key to sustaining your prayer-life.
Jesus says in verse 7: 'If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.’
Our on-going dependence on Jesus and adherence to his words transforms our desires, so that our prayer requests conform to God’s revealed will. As Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane: ‘Yet not what I will, but what you will.’ [3]
3. It is the key to averting judgement in this life and the next.
Jesus says in verse 6: ‘Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.’
This verse is referring to judgement, which in many mainline, Western Churches[4]has become a taboo subject!
The C20th theologian Richard Niebuhr summed it up well:
‘A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgement through the ministry of a Christ without a Cross.’[5]
C. Fortunately, Jesus gives the Church of Laodicea and the West a lifeline: ‘Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.’[6]
Faith’s Response:
(i) Be still and know that I am God! [7]
(ii) As you take the bread and wine this morning commune with the Lord in your heart. … open up to the Lord and receive grace to help in your time of need
[1]John 15:4a in The Message Bible
[2]See the footnote to Psalm 100:3a in the NRSV – Pew Bible Old Testament page 508
[3]Mark 14:36 in the ESV(English Standard Version).
[4]I.e. the Church of Laodicea is a type of much of the Western Church -Revelation 3:14-22
[5] Quote from H. Richard Niebuhr, Kingdomof God in America (1937).
[6]Revelation 3:30 in the NRSV – PEW BIBLE NT p. 229
[7]Psalm 46:10a – NRSV in the PEW BIBLE OT page 477
