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Summary
I have a memory burned in my flesh and haunting my psyche. Every day, around about 1968 or ‘69, Mr. Johnston would gather all of the seven- and eight-year-old boys for PE, assign captains, and then make them pick teams. I was never picked first. Sometimes the captains would publicly argue over who would have to be stuck with me… Never first, but also not last. That was usually Matt, or maybe Duncan.
Matt and Duncan always played Batman and Robin at recess, and even then, Duncan always got to be Batman and Matt always had to play Robin — but at least Batman likes Robin. Routinely, someone would yell, “Get Matt and Duncan,” and a crowd of little boys, all trying to be the chosen, would chase Duncan and Matt behind the backstop, knock them down, and start kicking — only to walk away when Batman and Robin had been humiliated and left in the dust whimpering.
I remember standing on the side of that crowd, utterly frozen. I wanted to be chosen; I wanted to be one of the guys. And yet I wanted to choose Matt, to go lie in the dust next to Matt. And I began to wonder, “How does God choose?” How does God pick His friends? Do we have to try out for His team? Does He choose us based on our choices… and if so, who made those choices? Choices are made by choosers, so who makes all the choosers? And what is Hell? Behind the backstop in 1968, it already felt like hell.
John 15:12-14, Jesus is walking from the Upper Room to a garden named “Gethsemane” and then on to a garden on Mt. Calvary. He’s just told them of the True Vine, Vinedresser, and Branches, when He says, “This is [the commandment of me], that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends IF you do what I command you…” This must be how He picks His team.
In our worship service this week, I said. “Let’s pick teams.” I asked those who do what Jesus commands, to raise their hand and then go to the right side of the room at my command. Then I asked those who don’t do what Jesus commands to raise their hand. We ran into a problem, for most people raised the same hand both times. We hope that the Judgment of God would judge between people, but it seems to cut people, all people… cut each one of us in two.
John 15:15, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
I hate being a boss, but love being friends. So, I’ll often explain myself to “employees,” because I want them to trust my intentions; I want to be friends. I want them to agree with me because they trust me (That’s called, “faith.”) Jesus doesn’t want robots, slaves, or employees; He wants friends.
And did you notice in the passage that Jesus just called them “Friends”? And yet at dinner, He had told just them, “You will all fall away [scandalizo: be scandalized, sin] because of me this night.” And yet again, He will soon tell them (just 13 more verses), “I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away [scandalizo: ‘being scandalized,’ sinning].” They do fall away, yet they all come back, as if His word in them were some sort of homing beacon or imperishable seed.
For three years, they had chosen to leave everything and follow Jesus. At times, it seemed like the best choice they had ever made. As the chant of the crowd changed from “Hosanna” to “Crucify, Crucify,” they would each re-evaluate all their choices and choose to abandon their friend. Jesus knows this. He turns and says…
John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…”
That must’ve sounded so strange and yet so familiar. God chose Abraham. God Chose Israel. God Chose Judah. And they all had a tremendously difficult time choosing God. God tells the people of Israel to choose but informs them that they cannot, for their hearts have not been circumcised. Joshua tells them to choose to serve but then tells them they are unable. He and his house will choose and serve, but to be part of Joshua’s house (His Bride or children) is not their choice. It’s Joshua’s choice. “Joshua” is the Hebrew form of the name “Jesus.”
John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…” I think that means that He controls the “IF.” “There is no greater Love than to die for your friends.” Jesus dies for “the sins of the whole world.” He must consider all the sinners in this world to actually be His friends.
John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…” He is the Logos, the Logic of God. He is the Light, the Way, The Truth, and the Life. Maybe you can’t choose Life unless the Life has chosen you.
Maybe you can’t tell the Truth unless the Truth is telling you; you can’t find the Way unless that Narrow Way has found you. You can’t choose to turn on the Light unless the Light has chosen you and decided to turn you on to Him. Maybe you can’t even think unless you are being thought.
Maybe you can’t choose the Good unless the Good is choosing you, and choosing you from the inside out, as you choose the Good — and even as you choose the bad and regret it later on.
He controls the “IF.” And yet, He doesn’t want robots, slaves, or employees; He wants friends. How does He do that? Perhaps He just told us, His friends…
John 15:1-5 (what we preached last time), “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he lifts up, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [kathairo], that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean [katharos: pruned] because of the word that I have spoken to you. 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. I am the vine; you are the branches. [Maybe each one of us is a bunch of branches, just as each person is a bunch of choices.] The one abiding in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
If you define “free will” as a choice that you make apart from God, which determines the choices of God, then your “free will” is nothing. It’s a nothing that you think is a something, which is worse than a mere nothing; it’s an illusion that the devil inhabits.
John 15:10-12, “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. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
I woke up at 4 a.m. last Wednesday morning, wrestling with this Word from God: “Abide in the vine.” Then suddenly, the obvious hit me: Branches don’t choose to abide in the vine, prune themselves, or grow fruit. I realized, “I Am God’s choice or I am nothing.” And then, it felt like I began to abide — I was at home, at home in “me.” And when branches abide in the vine . . . FRUIT just happens. It is what Jesus commands: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, the Good, etc.
Jesus will soon be hanging on a tree in the middle of a garden on the Holy Mountain. There’s a reason that we all chose evil, and God chose the Good: mercy on all. God wants all the children of Adam to see: His decision is Grace; He is Grace; He chose you, long before you could even begin to choose Him.
When I believe the snake and so take the fruit in order to create myself in the image of God, I take the Life, crucify Christ, choose death, and produce “the works of the flesh.” That’s My choice: Self-righteousness, fake fruit, and sour grapes. And I become a tree of death. But when I believe the Truth and so surrender to Christ, it is Christ in me giving His life to me and rising from the dead within me as every good choice born of me: New Wine, the Fruit of His Spirit in me, His Life through me — our eternal life. The Tree of Life, the True Vine, now grows in me.
I am a temple, and the Holy of Holies in me is the inner man in me, Christ in me, the True Vine in me. The Outer Man must be dead branches: the form of life but drained of life, like a corpse — or nothing. My consciousness can abide in either place: God’s something or the nothing I pretend is something
1.) I can’t grow fruit by trying, for then I’m not abiding in the vine, and so all the fruit I grow is fake.2.) I can’t prune my own vine; I can’t judge my own choices, for that would just be more of my own bad choices and create more dead branches. 3.) A branch can’t just decide to abide in a vine unless the vine has already decided to abide in the branch, in which case the branch actually becomes the vine.
1.) The Eleven had tried to Love as Jesus loved for three years and would utterly fail this night. 2.) In a few hours, they would each re-evaluate all their choices; they would attempt to prune their own vine. 3.) Jesus would turn and say, “You didn’t choose me; I chose you.”
That Word must’ve sat in them like a seed, root, or stump. It was our Lord’s Choice in them. At the cross, the Vinedresser pruned them down to Jesus (“God is Salvation”). They fell away, and yet they came back, for they just wanted to be with Him; they wanted to abide with Him even when He seemed to be good for nothing… just good. And in case you didn’t know, those 11 guys bore fruit.
When I see that I didn’t choose Jesus, but Jesus chose me, I trust the vine in me, and He trusts us both to the Vinedresser. And then I abide, and FRUIT (Good Choices) just happen. I don’t have to prune the branches, and I don’t have to fake the fruit. I just need to know: “I Am God’s Choice or Nothing.” Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.”
When I see it, my ego disappears, the vinedresser prunes my branches (I can let stuff go; it’s nothing), and it changes all my nothings into His something. And then, I’m free to be “me.” But in 1968 behind the backstop, I was frozen. I wanted to be part of that crowd, that was my choice, and yet, I wanted to go lie next to Matt in the dust — that was another’s choice in me. That was the Chosen choosing me, and so telling me who I am. I was frozen, but He is setting me free to be “me” . . . and Him. You have been chosen to be you and no one else except Jesus, the Chosen One in you.
My greatest memory from South Elementary: In PE playing basketball, someone passed the ball to Matt just to be mean. Matt freaked out, and in a spasm, just hurled the ball from half-court . . . and it went in! Everyone froze and stood in awe. I thought, “There is a God.” But the angels were unimpressed. Half-court shots are no big deal for the Creator. It was just a sign. But for that same Creator to choose to go lie in the dust with Matt, and in every adam, even in hell (“Even if I make my bed in hell,” wrote David), that’s THE SUBSTANCE.
So, don’t be surprised, if in the Age to Come, you look to the throne of God and see Matt sitting next to Jesus and their Dad, ruling over all things in perfect freedom. For that’s how God our Father picks His team. And in the End, we’ll discover that everyone that’s anyone is on His team, for the other team is nothing.