「キリストの愛にとどまり続ける」 七月第一主日礼拝 宣教 2025年7月6日
ヨハネによる福音書 John 15章1〜12節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. In God’s abundant love, we thank the Lord for the blessing of being gathered here in the chapel this morning to offer praise and worship to Him with you. We also welcome those who worship online. Welcome back to those who have returned to church after a long absence.
Okubo Church celebrated its 60th birthday last July 4, and this month of July will be a month of joy and thanksgiving for the 60th anniversary of the church. This morning, for the first time in a while, we sang the church’s original praise song, “Let us connect to the Lord Jesus.” During this month, through God’s love and mercy, we would like to share the grace that has allowed this Okubo Church to stay connected to Jesus for 60 years. Without this church, we would never have met. The foundation of this church is God’s love, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross, and the gospel.
This morning, we will hear from the Lord’s words in the Gospel of John chapter 15, which is an important passage in which Jesus speaks to His disciples before His death on the cross, and the main focus is on the relationship between Jesus and His disciples. However, Jesus first clarifies the relationship between Himself and God in verse 1 by saying, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer”. The vine is under the protection and treatment of the farmer, indicating submission to God. Jesus knew His earthly mission/purpose. He is determined to live as God wants Him to live and to die an atoning death on the cross for our salvation.
Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Stay connected to me. Stay connected to me. Why does he do this? It is because those who at first eagerly listened to and followed the Lord had fallen away from Him. In the churches pastored by John who wrote this gospel, there were many who confessed Jesus as their Savior and promised to follow Him, but they did not bear fruit. Why did this happen? Many believed in Jesus only for their own salvation and self-gratification. But Jesus invites us to love God and love our neighbors.
Jesus says in verse 3, “By the words that I have spoken you are already clean. The “words I have spoken” are the teachings the Lord has been sharing with His disciples during the past three years of His ministry. What is important here is the Lord’s declaration, “You are already clean,” a word that is proclaimed not only to the disciples but also to those of us living today, an invitation to those who have not yet believed, “Be clean”. Those who believe in and follow Christ Jesus are cleansed by God’s love and mercy. The key is to believe in Jesus who declares it so. So what does it mean to be “cleansed and purified”? There are two truths in what Jesus says here.
One is that anyone who believes in His atoning death and resurrection on the cross, which He will undergo after this, will be cleansed by faith. The gospel of Christ is that anyone can be saved and cleansed by faith in believing that this death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross is a work of love that brings forgiveness of one’s sins and eternal life. Just by believing the good news, we are cleansed of our sins, saved, and made sinless before God in grace. All we have to do is believe in Jesus as our Savior and obey Him.
The other is that when we look at the Greek word for “clean,” it has the same etymology and intimate relationship to the word in verse 2, where God, the farmer, is “tended.” The word for “clean” is katharos, and the word for “tended” is kathairo. In other words, to be cleansed by the word of the Lord means to be cared for and pruned by God, with what is necessary being left behind and what is unnecessary being removed. Jesus said in verse 2, “Every branch that is connected to me and does not bear fruit, the Father will take away. But whoever bears fruit, he will take care of it so that it will finally bear fruit in abundance. There are three things to keep in mind in these words of the Lord.
(1) God expects us to bear fruit. We do not have to do anything special, but as long as we stay connected to Jesus, God will give us everything we need to bear fruit. 2) God Himself prepares us so that we may bear fruit in abundance; 3) pruning is indeed a painful process, but Jesus is with us, and He hurts with us; and 4) we are not afraid of the words “pruning” and “being removed. We do not need to be afraid of the words “pruning” or “removal. It is important to believe that God has a definite plan, surrender everything to Him, and focus on bearing fruit while expecting Him to bring forth abundant fruit.
Jesus says in verse 6, “If you are not connected to me, you will be thrown outside like branches to wither, and you will be gathered up and thrown into the fire to be burned”. But there is no need to be afraid or disappointed by those words. The important thing is to have hope through Jesus, for verse 7 says, “If you are connected to me, and my word is always in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Ask whatever you wish, and it will be granted. These are the words of Jesus. It is important to pray and ask through Jesus. But what we ask for is important. The only thing we should ask for is to stay connected to Jesus.
What good will come from staying connected to Jesus? Verse 8 says, “If you bear fruit abundantly and become my disciples, then my Father will be glorified through you.” We are to bear fruit abundantly and be prepared to be disciples of Jesus. The Lord says that this is how God is glorified, that is, God is most pleased with us.
The first important thing for loving is to “abide and continue to abide in the love of Jesus Christ”. But what does it mean to “remain in the love of Jesus Christ”? I believe the answer is found in the following verse 10. In verse 10, Jesus says, “As I have kept the Father’s law and abide in his love, so you also will abide in my love if you keep my laws”.
Jesus says in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my laws,” and to “abide in the love of Christ” means to “love Christ” and to “love God. We can love God by receiving love and encouragement from Jesus as we connect with Him.
Also, in John 14:23-24, Jesus said, “He who loves Me will keep My word. My Father loves him, and the Father and I will go to him and dwell with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. The words you hear are not mine, but those of my Father who sent me.” Therefore, we know that the “law of Christ” is to listen to and obey “the word of Christ” or “the word of God”.
The Old Testament contains the first law, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, thoughts and strength,” and the second law, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”. Certainly these two laws are important, but the “my law” that Jesus is referring to in verse 10 is the “I give you a new law” of John 13:34: “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another. As I have loved you, love one another”.
Therefore, to abide in Christ’s love means that we love one another with His love. It means to love one another as He loved us. And in order to bear this fruit, we need to stay connected to Jesus. If we stay connected to Christ, we will receive God’s love through Him, and only through that love can we love God and Christ, love our neighbors, and love one another in the community of faith that is the Church.
Jesus spoke of this so that “the joy of Christ may be in us always, and our joy may be full,” as verse 11 says. What is our joy? It is to live together, to worship the Lord together, and to serve the Lord and our neighbors together.
Jesus said in verse 12, “Love one another as I have loved you. This is my law.” As we daily thank God and Jesus for their love and mercy, rejoice and love one another, the church will continue to be built up in blessings. It is not our work, but God’s work. First and foremost, let us walk toward the 61st year. Let us love one another, pray for one another, serve one another, support one another, and walk together. Beyond that, there will be a church of 70, 80, and 100 years.