“The Gospel of Abiding”
May 25,
2014
6th Sunday of the Great Christian Passover
Acts 17: 22 – 31/Psalm
148: 7 – 14/1 Peter 3: 8 – 18/John 15: 1 – 8
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P. Santos D.D.
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church
We are the people of God;
we are a people of faith. Faith is defined as the substance of things we
hope for and the evidence of things not seen. Without faith, we cannot
please God. We are a people of faith and we live by that faith if
we are to live in the kingdom of God. The opposite of faith is doubt or
fear. In my own definition, fear is the unnecessary worry or anxiety over
that which does not exist or which is ridiculously blown out of proportion.
Many, if not all, of the things we fear do not exist at all. If
they do exist, what we do is to make mountains out of molehills. We
magnify them, blow them out of proportion.
Jesus says, “The lamp of
the body is the eye.” If you have fear, you don’t see clearly; you are
blinded. That makes you negative, pessimistic and everything is
hopeless. The team of spies that were sent to the Promised Land by Moses
came back with a bad report. Only Joshua and Caleb gave the truth, the
good report. The word of the spies ended saying, “We became grasshoppers
in our sight and so we were in their sight.” They were talking about the
giants, the descendants in Canaan. They said, “They are giants and we
cannot defeat them.” They forgot the truth which comes only from God’s
word and God’s promise. If we are ignorant of this or we don’t read it
enough, we will not remember the truth.
God’s word to them was, “I
will give you the land and you will dispossessed the inhabitants of the
land.” He did not say, “They were small, they were big. They were
good in combat.” God just simply said the truth, “You will dispossess the
inhabitants of the land that I am going to give you.”
They forgot it and what
happened was, in their sight, they became small and without
ability. When the truth said they do have ability to dispossess the
nations before them. When they saw themselves small, so they became small
in the eyes of the enemy. This is what happens when we lose sight of the
truth – we become discouraged because we become negative.
Picture the mix martial
arts, the UFC, where a 250-pound fighter is afraid of a 90- pound
amateur. A 250 pound man tells his trainer or coach, "We better not
go on with this fight. What if he slams me? What if he picks me up by the
neck and slams me on the mat?" This is ridiculous! Sometimes, we act
like this where we think our problem, which is 90 pounds, can pick us up at 250
pounds and slam us. Another ridiculous example is being afraid of
spiders. We say, “The spider is big!” which is not even a fourth of
the size of a foot. Some of us are afraid of cockroaches. I am not
talking about the comparison of a 90-pound fighter against a 250-pound
fighter. I am talking about a tiny cockroach that when we see it, it
makes us jump up on the chair. What can the cockroach do to you? My point
is that is what happens when you have fear in your mind and in your
heart. The truth is one stomp will kill a cockroach.
Many times, this is how
ridiculous we become when we have fear in our hearts. Fear means we
become ignorant of the truth. We don't see the truth in the eyes of faith
and in many instances, we lose our common sense. Common sense would tell
you that cockroach cannot kill you but you can do sitting down even if your
hands are tied behind. We need to always see the truth using the eyes of
faith.
Faith sees the
truth. It is not blind. It sees that God has given us the ability
to face anything and to live the life that He intended for us to live – the
abundant life. God is a God of abundance. We who fear the future,
we who worry about what to eat, we who worry about money for the future, God is
the One who gives to us bread for us to satisfy ourselves and stay alive.
On top of what we need, He gives us extra for sowing or blessing others.
Seed for sowing; bread for eating. He gives us more than enough for our
needs intentionally. It is not so that we would stuff ourselves but so that we
receive what we do need and the extra we use for others who are in need to give
and bless them. Enough for our needs; extra for blessing others.
We need to have faith so
that our hearts and minds are pure only toward the truth. To the pure all
things are pure; to the negative, all things are hopeless. We are not to
be negative. I am not just talking about positive thinking as if we need
to convince ourselves. We don’t need to convince ourselves. We need
to be aware of what already is the truth that God has provided. We need
to guide our hearts and focus our minds on the truth.
The gospel proclaimed the
truth: Jesus is the Vine; the Father is the Vinedresser; we are the
branches. The truth is if we abide in Christ, we live. Apart from
Him, we die. We can do nothing; we are nothing. As branches,
the wisest thing for us to do is hang in there. Life is supplied by the
vine to the branches. We, Filipinos, would say, “Jesus is Di-vine
(the vine); we are the branches. We partake of the “di-vine” nature. We
only live when we are attached to Him. We dare bear fruit not because of
what we do but because of what we are and where we are. We are branches
programmed by the Creator of the vine to bear fruit, but only when it is
attached to the Vine. Where we are is where we are attached to the
Vine.
Fruit is the excess,
overflow of life that branches has taken into itself from the nutrients of the
moisture from the soil and that is supplied to it by the vine. The more
life is taken, the more fruit is produced; the more fruit that is produced, the
more ability to receive life and produces even more. It is
like muscle building. You build muscle as you pump iron and lift weights.
When that muscle develops, it is ready for heavier loads. This is true
physically and spiritually. This is true in Kingdom living. We are,
by nature, able to bear fruit. It is not because of our ability but
because of our creation and the provision supplied to us, the branches, by the
Vine.
1Peter 3:9 says, “You were
called for this very purpose, that is, to be a blessing or to bear fruit so
that you may inherit more blessings.” God wants to ever bless us because
He wants us ever blessing. Now, we have a better understanding why Jesus
cursed the fig tree because the fig tree, by nature, was programmed to bear
fruit and it did not. We all receive from God overflowing abundance – all
of us and no one is exempt.
Do not suppress yourself
from bearing fruit by one, trying to consume the overflow. God
intentionally gives us extra which means not for us; it is excess. It we
eat too much, we will get bloated and would actually kill us. Drinking
straight one bucket of water will kill you, but the right amount is good for
you. The excess will be good if you give it somebody who also is in need of
water. Don’t suppress yourself from bearing fruit by trying to consume
all that God gives to you. There is always extra but this is God’s
nature – abundant; more than enough.
Two, don’t suppress
yourself from bearing fruit by cutting yourself off from Him. Apart from
Him, we cannot do anything. Apart from Him, we have no life at all.
Three, do not suppress yourself from bearing fruit by ignorantly taking only a
small fraction of what He gives. He gives us what we need and extra so that we
can bless others.
There was a priest whose
church had a small parking lot. His members, during the week, would go to their
work place and some of them would park in the church’s parking lot because the
parking fees in the other areas are expensive. One day, during the week,
he got into the church’s yard and was about to park into his parking slot which
was clearly marked: For the Minister. Right in front of him was this car
that beat him to the parking slot and out came a lady. The priest rolled
down his window and said to her, “Don’t park there.” The lady said, “Who
are you? The pastor in this church gave us permission to park our cars during
the week here, so I am permitted to do this.” He thought of categorizing
his parishioners now into two: members and parking privileges only.
This is what we do
sometimes. We only take a small part of God’s blessing. He just
doesn’t give us a small parking slot. We think that this parking space is
all there is in life. We would have a lot more if we know the owner of
the parking lot. If in the first place we don’t know him and we try to
steal a slot that is not probably even for us, and we are satisfied with that,
this is not what God wants for us. He doesn’t want us to only have a
little or a few privileges. God wants an abundance for us.
Many times, we think that
life consists only in a parking place, money or material things.
There is a lot more in life to that. God want us to have
this. He has given this to us. We need to open our eyes to the
truth: bread for food and seed for sowing. Jesus said, “I came that
they may have life and might have it more abundantly.” It is God’s
will. The Lord is our Shepherd and we do not lack. Don’t try to
consume everything by yourself. You need to have an outlet. Otherwise, if
you consume the abundance, it will kill you. Bless others; minister to
others.
We each have something we
can give. If you need an outlet, I encourage you to get involved in a
ministry. If you hoard the blessing, it will not be good for you.
If you have an outlet and you minister to somebody in need by involving
yourself in a ministry or in your communities, then that extra will serve you
good. This extra will be multiplied in the future as you use it.
Like muscle building, the more you lift, the bigger your muscle gets; and the
more ability for heavier weights. If you carry heavier weights, your
muscles grow even bigger.
Do not suppress it. Share
it because the joy from eating the bread is really nothing compared to the joy
of sowing the extra seed. It makes our joy full. Scriptures says,
“Love one another that your joy may be full.” John said, “These things we
proclaim to you so that our joy may be full and be made complete.” This
is one of the sons of Thunder. His attitude used to be, “Call fire from
heaven and consume these evil people.” He was temperamental but he
understood that sharing the extra seed, the extra blessing brings the fullness
of joy to us.
We, as branches, don't
have to force ourselves to make fruit. It is our nature. We don't
have to make up our minds and say, “Today, I will bear fruit.” We simply
need to abide in the Vine. We simply need to be in the right place – in
the Vine that has been planted and cared for by God who is the perfect Gardener
and who makes sure the conditions for growth are perfect.
Acts 17 says, "In Him we live and move and exist or have our being.”
If we abide in the Vine, we are connected to the Source of life.
As branches, we only need
to do two things. One, we need to have connection to the Vine in order to
stay alive and grow and bear fruit. The branch is supposed to be
connected to the vine because through it, it receives moisture, water and
nutrients from the soil to the vine. Two, there is this process
called photosynthesis which is the process that when a plant is exposed
to light, water and nutrients from the soil and carbon dioxide are all
transformed into plant food. This is what causes the branch to bear
fruit. If you a have house plant, the plant have a tendency to turn to where
the sunlight is. If you want your plant to be upright, once in a while,
you turn it because a plant naturally seeks sunlight and it leans toward that.
This signifies our leaning, our natural tendency to seek God, the Father.
We turn to Him. We not only turn to Him, but we need to be attached to
the Vine.
Some Christians think that
they don’t need the Vine, Jesus or the Church. They go straight to the
sunlight and they get all the nourishment from the sunlight. The process
is that the sunlight converts the nutrients from the soil and the water that
the branch receives from the vine. If those things were not there, no
amount of sunlight can make the plant bear fruit or even stay alive.
You cannot just go straight to God and say, “God told me to do this.” “I
don’t need the Church. I have the Holy Spirit.” “I have God with me. It is me
and my Bible.” “God speaks to me.” You need to have a connection to the
Vine. I might have been speaking of Jesus as the Vine, but really, the
mystery is great. I am speaking about Jesus being one with the Church.
They are one. If we abide in Christ, we cannot help but abide in the
Church. You cannot separate Christ and the Church. We are one
Body. He is the Head; we are the body. We are to abide in
that. Yes, we listen to God, but don’t disregard the other component that
is just as important, which is being attached to the Vine.
We really cannot do
anything but abide. We cannot boast. We can only boast in the
Lord. We have no choice. Psalm 2:6 says, “I have installed My King
upon Zion, My holy mountain.” The King, the Vine, is installed in the
Kingdom, in the Church. We are to abide in Him; we are to abide in the
place where He is. They are one flesh – Christ and the Church.
There was one pastor who
went to visit one of his members who have not been coming to Church. It was
chilly that night so there was fire in the fireplace. The member received
the pastor into his living room and sat by the fire. They were just quiet
and the pastor did not say anything. He suddenly got up from his chair,
got one log from the fire, and separated it from the rest of the logs and sat
down again. They were just there looking at the fire and they noticed
that after a while, this one log was slowly dying and losing its fire.
Eventually, there was no fire. The rest of the logs stayed and the fire
continuously was burning. After that, the pastor got up without a
word. Then, the member got up and said, “Pastor, I want to thank you for
that fiery sermon.” They did not have to say anything. If you
cut-off yourself from the Vine and from the Church where there is life, where
the King is installed, eventually you will lose life because you are not
connected to the Source of life. This is the truth!
I encourage you, I adjure
you, I admonish you, I entreat you, I beg you, brothers, sisters, do not
ever get your focus off of the truth! God is the Vine; we are the
branches. The bottom line is if we are not connected, we don’t have
life. If we stay connected, we naturally are satisfied, our needs are
met, and we bear fruit. It is not because of our ability, but
because of the fact that we are connected. This is the design of
God. He causes the growth, not us.
The simple task is:
stay attached! Abide in the Vine! This is where life is. God says, “There
I proclaim the blessing – life forever!” This is the way it is in
the kingdom of our God.
LET US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento