Remember the Three P’s
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God through which the Holy Spirit guides our hearts and minds today is what Jesus spoke, recorded in John 15:1- 8
Dear friends who belong to Jesus and especially you, our high school graduates for 2003
You’ve made it. You entered kindergarten to start learning the three R’s: reading, writing, and arithmetic, and now you are graduating as seniors. It’s a time of joyful accomplishments as well as sad partings. It’s a time of finishing as well as a time of beginning. More than ever before, people view you as adults with the responsibilities that involves. Your school has prepared you academically with the three R’s to carry out adult responsibilities, but are you spiritual ready? Are you spiritual ready to live your Christian faith and honor your Savior in the face of Satan’s lies and the world’s deceitful promises and pleasures?
Are you spiritually ready? Or maybe a better question to ask is: How do you spiritually get ready and remain ready as you face the life in front of you? Jesus words in John 15 answer that. Jesus speaks these words to his disciples at their commencement so to speak. They had spent three years learning from Jesus. But now it’s Maundy Thursday. This is Jesus last time to speak to his disciples before his betrayal, death, and resurrection. He speaks these words to you and me as well. Take them to heart and remember them as you pass this milestone in life. For instead of the three R’s these words teach us the three P’s. They teach us spiritual power, perseverance, and purpose..
1) Power
The challenges and temptations that you and I face are too great for our human power. And even though right now you may feel on top of the world and invincible, a time comes in all our lives where we are knocked flat on our back, and we see that we never really had power on our own to begin with.
Jesus words bring us real power. For Jesus teaches us where power comes from and how it comes to us. He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15: 5 NIV).
Where does true power come from? Not from ourselves. How many grapes will this branch, cut from the vine, produce? None. Jesus says, “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me” (John 15:4 NIV). Or look at this light bulb. No matter how hard it tries it’s not going to light itself.
And yet as clear as these examples are, you are going to face the temptation to power yourself. This temptation is what humanism is all about. Colleges are filled with it. You’ve been exposed to it already in school. Humanism says that you control your future. That you need to focus on you to draw the power out. That you can go where you want to go, be what you want to be, and do what you want do. And humanism may look and sound good, just like this leafy branch still looks good. But humanism cuts you off from the Vine and like this branch, which will wither, so will all who follow humanism.
Even many Christian groups you run into will teach that you have some sort of natural spiritual power. They will talk about the need to make your decision to come to Jesus, as if this branch had the power to go and attach itself to the Vine. Remember what you learned in Catechism under the Third Article: “I can not by my own thinking or doing believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.”
Power does not come from ourselves. Where does it come from, then? And how does it get to us? Those are the key questions. For without the power we don’t have any of the three P’s. Without the power we can not persevere; we have no purpose. Where does power come from? How does it get to you and me?
Jesus answers, “I am the true vine . . . you are the branches.” (John 15:1, 5). Just as a branch connected to the vine has the power to produce fruit. So when you and I are in Jesus, the true Vine, we have the power. Only Jesus is the genuine vine. Only he can give us the real power. Humanism and any other philosophy, religion, or life-style are only powerless imitations. Jesus is the true Vine.
Why? Because Jesus is your God and Savior. No other person is the eternal, almighty Son of God, who came from the Father’s side to bring life into this world that’s dead in sin. No other person is both true God and true man, the perfect Substitute for us sinners. No other person gave his life as the bloody sacrifice which alone appeased God’s anger against sinners, satisfied his justice, and paid the full price for all sins. No other person rose from the dead because he had defeated Satan, conquered death, and forgiven sinners. Only his blood has washed you clean. Only his perfect, righteous life covers your sins. Only his grace has connected you to him through Baptism.
Examine your connection to Jesus. How strong is it? Have the parasites of a busy schedule eaten into your connection with Jesus. Is the fungus of indifference and spiritual laziness cutting you off from the Vine? Instead of thinking about how close you can be to Jesus and how much fruit you can produce for him, do you wonder how little have to do to still be a Christian and how much you can get away with? Listen to Jesus warning. “[My Father] cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit . . . If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned” (John 15:2, 6 NIV). Repent before you are a dead branch, ready to be cut off, picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. Believe that Jesus has taken away those sins. He went to the cross for you. He died in you place. His blood washes you clean. He rose because God forgives you. As your risen Savior, he wants to revitalize you. He wants his power and strength to flow through you so that you bear much fruit
But how does Jesus bring his power to us? Just as a Vine feeds its branches through the sap it brings, Jesus feeds you through his Word. To remain in Jesus means to remain in his word. Jesus says “If you remain in me and my words remain in you” (John 15:7 NIV). Jesus word connected with water washed you clean in Baptism and connected you to the Vine. Jesus keeps on feeding you and giving you power as you remember the promises he made to you at your Baptism. Jesus keeps on feeding you and giving you power as you read the Bible and hear his Word correctly taught. Jesus keeps on feeding you and giving you power as you receive his Holy Supper in which he makes his word visible by giving us his body and blood to eat and to drink with the bread and wine. Without his Word, you and I become dead branches. With his Word flowing through our hearts and minds, we bear much fruit.
We have our answer to those key questions. Where does power come from? How does it come to us? Power comes from Jesus, the Vine. It comes through his Word and Sacraments. On our own we are a dead branch, an unlit light-bulb. But as when this light bulb is connected to a power source through this cord, so also when you are connected to Jesus through his word, you shine with his power. You produce much fruit.
2) Perseverance
When you are in Jesus and his word is in you, you will be able to persevere, which is the second P. You will face greater temptations than ever before. In the class room you may have teachers the ridicule and mock Jesus and Christians. It will be so tempting to pretend that your not a Christin. You may suffer for standing up for you Savior. You may face peer pressure to compromise you Christian morals, to misuse your bodies with drugs, alcohol, or sex. It may well seem so difficult to live for Jesus that you may wonder how you can persevere. You may have a heavy cross to carry.
But Jesus wants you to know that he not only gives you the power to say no to these temptations, but that as you resist them, he actually makes what you suffer serve for your good. The devil may want to use those temptations to cut you off from Jesus. But as long as you remain Jesus and his word remains in you, you can be sure that it is really the hand of you heavenly Father that’s wielding those sharp tools to train you, to strengthen you like a master gardening pruning his vines so that they produce more fruit. That’s what Jesus says, “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. 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” (John 15: 1, 2 NIV).
Think about that as you suffer for you Savior. We don’t like suffering, even when we know it’s for our good. We don’t understand. Just like if the branches of a vine could speak, they would loudly object when the gardener came to them with a clipper like this. “Don’t cut me!” But if the gardener doesn’t prune the branches, they won’t produce much fruit.
When you see trouble and hardship coming at you like a giant clipper, don’t try to avoid it by compromising your faith. Rather dig into Jesus’ word for power. Pray with the confidence that God will give you the strength to persevere. For that is what Jesus promise. And believe that the hand of your heavenly Father can and will wield for your good whatever he lets come into your life, so that you produce even more fruit.
Purpose
And that brings us to the third and final P. Purpose. What is your purpose in life? To be successful? To be happy? To accomplish your dreams? To have a family? What is your purpose? None of these. Although these can be great blessings in life, none of them give true fulfillment. What is your purpose? What gives true, eternal fulfillment? Jesus answers that, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8 NIV).
Our purpose in life is to glorify our heavenly Father. Glorify him by producing much fruit. Let the joy of Jesus, the peace of forgiveness, that hope of heaven shine in your lives. Let patience, love, kindness and forgiveness fill your relations with others. Let the Good News of what Jesus has done for you come out in the words you speak to others. These are some of the fruits that show us to be Jesus’ disciples and so glorify God. Just as the purpose of a branch is to produce grapes. Your purpose and mine is to produce the fruits of faith to the glory of God.
In school you’ve learned the three R’s. You’ve learned not only what they are. You’ve learned how to use them. Even if you couldn’t tell someone, what the three R’s were, you can still do them. That’s the point with the three P’s as well. Simply knowing or not knowing the words: power, perseverance, purpose, makes little difference. What makes the difference is knowing what Jesus said and putting it into practice in your life. He is the true Vine. He is your power. Stay connected to him through his Word so that you can persevere and produce much fruit to God’s glory, which is our purpose in life.
