Part 1: What Vine are you Abiding In?

Part One - What vine are you abiding in?

One of my favorite passages in scripture is Jesus’ teaching on the vine and the branches. Recently I had a chance to work through this passage with the high school group at our church and look at what it means for Christ to be the Vine and for the believer to be the branch in relation to the changing and transforming nature of their young lives. Here is the passage:

John 15:1-11
15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Background and Context

Before we get into the meat of this passage we need to consider the context and set the stage a bit. Just two chapters previous to this we see Jesus and the disciples entering the upper room to celebrate the Passover together. This was probably a few hours before Jesus teaches on the vine and the branches. In the upper room, Christ knows he is on his way to the cross and he knows the misery and suffering that is to come. He takes time during this last supper to teach the disciples massive truths. From chapter 13 to our passage in chapter 15 we see all of this:

- Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and introduces servant leadership – love one another (John 13:1-17) – remember this
- Jesus tells of a disciple who will betray him. (John 13:18-30) – remember this
- Jesus introduces communion – (Mat 26:26-29)
- Jesus introduces the new covenant of his blood (Luke 22:20)
- Jesus introduces a new commandment – love one another (John 13:31-35) – remember this
- Jesus foretells of Peter’s denial (John 13:36-38)
- Jesus drops the deity bomb by declaring that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through him…and if you have seen him you have seen the father. (John 14:1-14)
- Jesus promises the Holy Spirit (John 14:16)

After all these huge topics that Christ slips onto his unsuspecting disciples during this little Passover dinner, says in v 31: “Rise and let us go from here!” The disciples I’m sure are sitting at the table looking at each other asking, “What did he say? Another is coming? A Helper? What was that about eating his body?” – and Jesus gets up to move on…probably leaving the disciple scrambling to catch up with Him.

According to Harry Ironside in his commentary and also in Morgan’s commentary, there are a couple of possible reasons why Christ compares himself to a vine and defines himself as the TRUE Vine.

1. As Christ and the disciples leave the upper room at night – probably dark by then – and walk past the Temple, they would have passed by the temple Gates which have a huge golden vine with hanging fruit – representing the Old Testament references of Israel (Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah,, Ezekial) as the vine. You could see Christ stopping the disciples in the tracks and point up to this vine above the gates and say, “I am the TRUE VINE – abide in me.” Now, there is a whole rabbit trail – more like a freeway system to follow related to Christ as the true vine in reference to the Old Testament passages, however, we don’t have time to deal with now.

2. The second possibility is that as they were walking through the Kidron Valley on their way to the Gethsemane, they passed a vineyard along the path, and again, you can see Christ stop the disciples and say: “I am the TRUE VINE!”
Neither of these can be confirmed historical or biblically, but they provide us with a nice picture of this late night adventure.

This passage, John 15:1-11, is about as famous of a scriptural passage as you can find in the Bible and we can’t get anywhere near being able to deal with everything, so I have boiled it down to four points that I want you to learn, own, and live out:

Point #1 - What vine are you abiding in?
Point #2 - What kind of fruit are you bearing?
Point #3 - Why does Christ tell us these things?
Point #4 - How do we abide? – The practical side


Keller Hackbusch

Matt Chandler...be encouraged

The Village Church (Dallas, TX) lead pastor Matt Chandler was diagnosed with a frontal lobe brain tumor. Chandler is a healthy young man (35yrs) with great zeal for the word of God and preaching his savior. This sudden diagnosis is shocking and sad for those who have been following Matt for a while. I pray for recovery and strength for his wife and kids. Matt is very encouraging and this video is true to his spirit and faith. Matt will not waste his tumor, but will instead glorify God with this surgery and tumor and recovery.

Watch this video and be encouraged by Matt's courage and faith.

Matt Chandler Video

http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=363



Keller Hackbusch

Take Your Eyes Off the Mirror

Are you happy being who you are?

Do you have good self-esteem?

Good self-confidence?

Does it really matter?

Are you comfortable in a room full of strangers or do you compare yourself to everyone; focusing on your flaws?

I think many of us struggle everyday with who we are. I’m not talking about how we wish we could lose 20 lbs or how I wish my hair hadn’t started falling out in my mid-twenties. Those are minor cosmetic issues. I’m talking about the big stuff that becomes chains shackling us to the walls in the dungeon of depression.

Our society is going through many trials in these difficult times. Many are losing homes and jobs, going bankrupt and feeling like failures.

Do you feel like a failure?

Do you feel not good enough?

Are you jealous of those who seem successful and have it all?

Do others have better jobs?

Are others more attractive?

Is their house, wedding ring, or motor home that much bigger and better than yours that you feel like a loser around them?

Do you ask why them and not me?

These thoughts of discontentment will eat away at our self-confidence and self-worth. But what is self-confidence and self-worth? Where does self-confidence and self-worth come from?

We need to start by taking our eyes away from the mirror for a change and look up. We need to look up toward our creator and savior Jesus Christ. We spend so much time looking at ourselves and comparing ourselves to other people that we don’t have time to look at God. Let’s get into the encouragement that can only be found in the Word. Here is what God says…

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Each one of us is uniquely and specially made in the image of God, which means we each carry unique attributes of God. We are all different, but no less made in God’s image.

Psalm 139:13-14

13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

God crafted our bodies, minds, and spirit in our mother’s womb in a unique and special way. We are wonderfully made in an awe-inspiring and fearful way. We are no accident. We are different, but each one of us is formed by the hands of the living God, who is infinitely holy, perfect, and good.

Isaiah 43:1-2 & 7

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine… 7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

God is very serious about these facts: He made us in His own image. He uniquely formed us from the inside out in our mother’s womb. He made us for His glory – for His purposes. Based on these scriptures (many others tell the same story), we should be able to deduce that we are not a freak occurrence of nature or and accident. We were not the results of strange biological evolutions or random chemical combinations. Each and every one of us was uniquely planned, creatively designed, precision engineered, and delivered with a purpose. God made us the way we are for a reason…for His glory. God made us just as we are for His purpose and His glory alone. There is nothing more valuable or perfect in the universe than God’s delight, purpose, and glory.

I hope you find comfort and confidence in this. We can not compare ourselves to others when we know we are unique for God’s purpose. We should instead search out where God has gifted us and apply our lives fully to those gifts and let God do the rest.

But why has he made us this way or that way?

But, if God makes us in His image, why is everyone else more interesting, more desirable, more rich, more important, more everything?

Is it not enough that you are the image of God?

My current favorite passages of scripture finish the story. These verses add power to our created nature and they describe the scope and depth of the power of the God who created us.

Romans 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Ephesians 1:11

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will…

These two phenomenal verses show that God’s will and purpose rules our existence. All things work for good – good in God’s eyes, not our own – and He works all things according to his predestined purpose. We and our lives are chosen and planned before time began in order to fulfill God’s ultimate design, purpose, and pleasure. This is good news. There are no mistakes and no failures…ever. Everyone has a purpose.

Not only do all things work for good, but all things are being maintained and held together by Jesus Christ. Right now, Christ is holding the stars in place in the sky, choosing the exact amount, size and speed of the rain drops falling in another part of the world while He is orchestrating the events of your life. I’d even argue that He is beating your heart to keep you alive.

Hebrews 1:3

…and he [Jesus] upholds the universe by the word of his power…

Colossians 1:17

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

The best part is that it is all good. It was all planned to be this way. You were planned to be this way. Have hope and have courage to serve your purpose to God’s glory. Find your purpose and work it out.

If, however, you are not encouraged and you still want to complain to the all knowing living God, I would caution you. We must be careful in complaining to the creator. Gratefulness and thankfulness should rule our hearts. We in today’s society have lost the healthy respect for God. We need to know our rightful place in the universe. This verse helps keep perspective:

Romans 9:20

20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”

Do we have higher standards than God? Or should we find peaceful contentment in how we were molded? Should we change our self-consumed focus from what we don’t have to God, His purpose, His glory, and His genius? I’d say so.

Divine Appointment - Part 3

…Continued from Divine Appointment – Part 2.

(Divine Appointment - Part 1)

Flash forward a couple months again. I recently had a trip to Mesa, AZ for a state airport networking conference and I thought there would be a chance that Dennis would be in attendance. So, I contacted him and told him that if he came I would love to talk adoption. Dennis did come and God worked in a major way again. We connected in the morning and decided that if neither of us had other clients to take out to dinner we’d get together and discuss adoption. Dennis also told me that he brought brochures information on an adoption agency for me, which was awesome.

We did in fact end up going to dinner together to discuss adoption and Dennis also invited another guy who worked for the government and had adopted as well. Surprisingly, there were six total in our dinner party: me, 2 of my employees, Dennis, an employee of Dennis’s and the government guy. Out of the six of us, two had already adopted internationally and two of us were very interested in adopting soon. I was shocked to find out that one of my employees was also planning to adopt. We violated all the rules of business that night by diving head first into the topic of our faith. I had my suspicions and I hoped that Dennis was a Christian and I was excited to find out that Dennis has a deep genuine and powerful faith – as did Dennis’s employee and the government guy. We spent the evening talking about God’s glory through adoption and what God was doing in our lives.

For several hours we discussed their specific experiences and all the options. This meeting was encouraging beyond words. After our excellent dinner – food and conversation – we went our separate ways back to the hotel to turn in since it was getting late. While we were sitting in a restaurant a block away discussing God’s goodness, the majority of the conference folks were partying in the hospitality suite late into the night. As I passed by the hospitality suite on my way to the elevator I was incredibly thankful for God protecting me by keeping me from that part of the conference. It is always difficult to avoid the cocktail parties and late night events at these conferences.

Dennis drove back separately with his co-worker as did I and I took a long time talking with my employees before making our way to the elevator where we surprisingly ended up on the elevator with Dennis. This was a surprise because we’d taken so long getting there. Then, ironically, Dennis was on the same floor as I was. We stepped off the elevator and spent another half hour talking about our faith and our goals as business owners from a Biblical and Godly perspective. This was amazing. We even talked about our mutual desire to preach and attend seminary and our struggle with God’s calling. Dennis had words of wisdom in suggesting that we were both not only the preachers of our families, but also the preachers of our businesses. We both have great ministries right in front of us in our businesses. At the end of this conversation Dennis asked if he could pray for me and my family. He prayed a wonderful prayer of encouragement for our faith, adoption, business, and friendship. As we started walking to our separate rooms, Dennis offered, “tonight was a divine appointment by God.” All I could respond with was, “Amen.”

I was so encouraged by the way God works and how he puts people together. In a strange town at a business event God knitted two of His spiritually adopted children together through a passion and a heart for earthly adoption.

Praise God for His divine appointments. Look for them and be blessed.

Romans 8:28-31

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Amen.

By Keller Hackbusch

Divine Appointment - Part 2

link to Part 1

Previously, in Divine Appointment – Part One, I tried to build some frame work around the idea that God ordains everything that happens in our lives. He ordained what you had for breakfast and that you are reading this right now. Since writing the first part of this topic, I’ve decided that I must add the new post: “Divine Appointment – Appendix”. This new “appendix” post (to be posted next) will be more scripture to enforce this belief.

My fascinating divine appointment went like this…it was actually a series of divine appointments.

My job requires me to attend tradeshow conferences several times a year where I travel to places around the western US to attend classes and network with clients. This networking process is something that I enjoy because I get to know new people who have interesting stories. One person with an interesting story is a civil engineering client I have known for about five years now. I’ll call him Dennis for the purposes of this post. Dennis and his wife have two biological children and two adopted children. I know this information because I did an interview with him for a project in Santa Fe, NM several years ago and we spent most of the day working together. Typically at events like this you get to know each other, but the personal information is limited. Limiting personal information exchange is usually recommended because often people have radically different lives and can completely disagree on important issues. This can and will strain professional relationships.

I have always been taught to not mix work with religion or politics. I’ve never been good at following this rule since I am passionate about my relationship with Jesus Christ and because I am a political junky. I am, however, always careful to not overstep the bounds of professionalism.

During this trip with Dennis years ago, I learned a bit about my associate’s adoption and the process they went through. This was very interesting to me because my wife, Maria, and I have been very open to the idea of adoption since we were dating. I told Dennis that someday I’d like to talk to him about his adoption in more detail.

Flash forward to August of 2009, the scene of a powerful divine appointment. I was sitting in my Pastor’s office just after our weekly men’s prayer group talking about how Maria and I really feel that God is calling us to add to our family. We were talking about getting pregnant, but we have had complications in the past so I was expressing my concerns. He asked a very innocent question: “have you guys ever considered adoption?” Well, of course we had, but not like we are now. I spent the next couple hours in my pastor’s office talking about adoption as a beautiful picture of the gospel – how God adopts us into his family, how he pulls us out of the orphanage of the world and our sin. We watched videos on the together for adoption website (www.togetherforadoption.org) and some others as well as discussion Russell Moore’s new book, Adopted for Life, (www.russellmoore.com) which I took home with me that afternoon. I had never had God speak to me so powerfully in such a wonderful way. My heart was broken and reset on God’s new agenda for me.

I can’t tell the whole story of how God has given us a heart for adoption at this point because it will take up too many inches of blog space. Maybe I’ll post on that another day. I’ll sum it up here simply as Maria and I are now looking into which agency we are going to use to adopt.

…Continued in Divine Appointment – Part 3.

by Keller Hackbusch

Divine Appointment - Part 1

I want to share an astounding story about what happened to me the other night, but I want to take some time first to build up the frame work around a biblical concept. I’ll tell my story in the next post – Divine Appointment Part 2. There are a couple of common phrases that we Christians often say which can become meaningless when we over use them. These phrases, however, have roots in some seriously important theology. I understand that I may be a bit of a theology nerd and a doctrine junky, but I think these things really matter. I believe it is important to know what we believe and why we believe it. I believe that we need to be able to express our beliefs to others with clarity and confidence. Back to our sayings…

Have you ever heard a Christian friend say any of these (or said these yourself – we all say them)? “Oh, you should have been there…it was a God thing.” “I’m sure it had to be a God thing.” “I guess God put that one together.” “Now that was a divine appointment!” I hear it all the time. What do these sayings or phrases mean to you? To most, I suspect, these sayings would mean that God has just done something miraculous, something big and obvious in their life…blessed them in some way. Maybe money showed up in the mailbox unexpectedly or maybe there was a conversation revolving around God that really touch the person or had one of ‘those’ spiritual conversations. Maybe you randomly bumped into that long lost friend that has been in your prayers. So, what does this saying really mean beneath the words? What message is our heart actually delivering? I think it reveals a belief that some things come from God and other things are random events that occur every day within our chaotic world. When we say “it was a God thing” we are also saying that there are things that are NOT a God thing. I believe that this question really dives to the core of how we see the structure of the universe. Does God work to fit His will, purposes, and events into a chaotic and random universe? Or are even the universe’s random events set in motion by God? My barometer is the Word of God, so let’s take a snapshot of a few verses:

Hebrews 1:3: “…he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” – Everything, all the time, is held up by Christ’s word.

Job 1:21 “And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” – Earlier in Job we see that the Father actually commands Satan to test Job and after Satan takes everything away from Job and this was his response.

Genesis 50:15-21 “15 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” 16 So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died, 17 ‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.” – This topic is too deep and powerful to discuss quickly here, however, look at verse 20. It is clear that God purposely caused and worked out everything we read of Joseph’s life in the Book of Genesis.

Ephesians 1:11 “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will…” – God works out everything according to the purpose of his will. He does all things for his pleasure and his plan.

What is the point of these verses? Simply this: Everything is a God thing. The fact that you awoke this morning and your heart was beating was a God thing. The fact that you are reading this blog post right now is a God thing. These things have been ordained and predestined by God for his purposes – all things all the time. The fact that you were not run over by a bus on your way to work was a God thing; however, had you been hit by a bus on your way to work that would have been a God thing too! God orchestrates everything and there is no such thing as random events! As R.C Sproul wisely states, “There isn’t a maverick molecule in the universe.” Everything and every event are under God’s divine control and purpose down to the way the leaves turn colors and the way that the stars sit in the sky. Everything from how the spiders make their webs to who we bump into in the grocery store…and it is all meant for good. God executed a divine appointment in my life the other night. Long ago God the Father set in motion a plan for that night’s events, he worked it out exactly as he had planned, and it was a great blessing.

Continued in Part 2…