Dead, Down, and Dry - Tim Banna

Let's turn to Isaiah chapter five. This is the Old Testament reading for today's message. My son will be preaching this morning. Isaiah chapter five, we read from verse one through seven. Now let me sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved regarding his vineyards.

My well beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and he planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst and also made a winepress in it, So he expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes. And now, oh, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it?

Why then when I expected it to bring forth good grapes did it bring forth wild grapes? And now let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it shall be burned, and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briers and thorns.

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord host the Lord of host is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry for help. May god bless his word.

Let's pray. Yahweh, you alone are God. You alone. You spoke creation into being, and out of your infinite love and creativity, you spoke time, space, and matter all into existence. The heavens and the earth, the trees and the flowers, the rain and the sunlight, all creation proclaims your perfect majesty and your matchless glory.

Father, despite our rebellion, our brokenness, our fruitlessness, you have adopted us unworthy servants into your royal family as sons and daughters. You have grafted us wild branches into the robust, life giving, deeply rooted olive tree of your son, Jesus. And to this, we are eternally grateful. Thank you for Jesus, our perfect savior, the radiance of your glory, and the exact imprint of your nature. Because of him, we humbly draw near to your throne to receive grace upon grace upon grace this morning.

In Jesus' name. Amen. If you have your Bibles, please open up with me to John chapter 15. We're reading verses one through six. That's John 15 verses one through six.

I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. 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. Already you are clean 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. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Abba, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, my rock and my redeemer.

So as a suburb boy, fires were not much of my upbringing nor was much of wilderness life for that matter. But this summer, I worked as a camp counselor up at a camp called Honeyrock in the Northwoods Of Wisconsin, where wilderness tripping and fire making were the norms. I have the responsibility of leading and taking care of fifteen 14 year olds during two three week camp sessions along with my co counselor, whom thankfully I had. Otherwise, I likely would have gone insane. This was the closest experience I've had to parenting.

So whenever we'd arrive at a at a campsite and we'd set up camp, one of the first things we do was work on starting a fire. Of course, before anyone starts a fire, there has to be a gathering of wood. And early on my co counselor taught me the three d's of good firewood. Now does anyone here know the three d's of good firewood collection? That's one.

Any other guesses? Alright. Down, dead, and dry. Dead, down, and dry you could say. So you can't have wood that is alive or wood that is still attached to a tree or a vine nor can you have wood that is wet.

But rather the wood should be dead, down on the ground, and dry in order for it to be good firewood. So once again, what are the three d's of good firewood collection? Alright, off to a good start. So in John 15, Jesus is in the midst of his farewell discourse and he's preparing his disciples for his departure from them. He describes himself, Jesus, as the true vine, his father as the vine dresser and his disciples as the branches.

This, of course, is the last of Jesus' seven I am sayings in the gospel of John. The Old Testament often uses the vine or the vineyard as a sim as a symbol of God's covenant people, Israel. Here Jesus calls himself the true vine in contrast to Israel who failed to uphold her job at representing God's character and love to the nations around her. Jesus himself, of course, perfectly represented the character of God and it promised life in himself. He commands us to abide in him.

In other words, to remain in him and trust in him and in his words in order that we too may bear fruit and reflect his goodness to the world around us. Otherwise, he essentially says we will make good firewood. Of course, while we want to find dead, down, and dry wood when looking to make a fire, we ourselves don't want to be found as dead, down, or dry on the last day when Christ returns in fiery judgments. We read in verse five, I am the vine. You are the branches.

You are all branches. We are all branches. The question is, where are we located? And in what condition are we in? Are we dead or alive?

Are we down or are we attached to the vine? Are we dry or are we seeping with life, love, and passion for Christ? The first is a question of life. Are we, as branches, dead or alive? A branch that is alive is likely connected to a tree or a vine and therefore has a flow, a consistent flow of life going through it, allowing it to bear leaves and fruit.

If I put a pile of live branches into a fire, what would happen? Well, it would smoke, and depending on the size of the fire, it could put the fire out. Why? Wood is supposed to burn. Right?

Well, yes. But depending on the quality of the wood, if the wood is wet, that means it's full of moisture. And therefore, we know from experience that this does not burn well. On the contrary, what is a dead branch? Well, according to the Botanical Society of America, the official scientific name for a dead branch within the field of environmental science is a stick.

That that's a joke. Sticks have fallen off the tree and cannot survive apart from the life source. They will die and inevitably decay. Dead wood, on the other hand, burns very well as there's very little moisture to first evaporate from it. Paul, in his letter to the to the Ephesians in chapter two, writes, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world.

In Romans seven verse six, he says, For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. In other words, the default state of every human being is spiritual deadness, bearing fruit for death. This might play out in blindly buying into the nicely packaged lies of the world, that more stuff, more money, more fame, more power, more sex will make you happy, that doing just what feels good or what your heart tells you is right. You know, you could open up your computer late at night and just have a desire to look at something you know you shouldn't, and yet, instinctually, you just pursue that path because it just feels good. Or you might be walking in a mall and you see a poster plastered on the wall with a half naked woman or male, and you look and you stare rather than looking away just because it feels right, or you might constantly have to buy more clothes or the newest technology in order to feel up to date, popular, attractive to those around you, even though you know there are better ways of spending your money.

But movie and also, you know, movie after movie teach the lie of seeking your other half. I'm sure you guys have heard this, seeking your, you know, your soulmate, who is the one specific person out there somewhere in the world who is made to complete you. This person is made to make you alive, and you just have to find this person, otherwise, you're screwed. But let me tell you something, that's it's all bunk. It's it's not true.

Two spiritually dead people don't together make a complete whole, but rather bring twice as much death and brokenness into the relationship, bearing fruit for death, namely the fruit of divorce, betrayal, loneliness. No person can complete you or make you truly alive except the person of Christ. And he then makes it possible for you to become one with another person who is equally as alive in Christ. Not two halves becoming one, but two complete image bearers of God merging together into one, what the Hebrew calls echad, the fusion into the deepest of levels. And this, of course, reflects the mysterious loving union of the Trinity, and that indeed is a beautiful thing.

For the religious, being dead to sin can be obeying rules or tradition. It could be being a good person in hope of winning God's favor. It could be reading the Bible to check off some imaginary checkbox that God supposedly checks when deciding whom to bless, or it could be praying before a meal as a chore or a habit rather than actually from a sincere and and grateful heart. Some may not admit to their pursuit of God's benevolent attention through habitual actions, but it is often deep seated in motivation for many, people in doing good works, along with escaping God's judgment. But needless to say, a life dead to sin is a life dead to joy.

A life dead in sin, rather, is a life dead to joy. The reformer John Calvin had something to say on the experience of those dead in sin and enslaved to the law. The law excited in us evil emotions which exerted their influence through all our faculties, For there is no part which is not subject to these depraved passions. What the law does in the absence of the inward teacher, the spirit, is increasingly to inflame our hearts so that they boil up with lusts. Friends, if one is dead in sin, his or her heart is a boiling pot for lust, for wicked desires, wicked thoughts, which inevitably will overflow in emptiness, hopelessness, and despair.

A prime example of this is in the life of of Augustine, a church father, who in his famous book, The Confessions, writes of his preconverted life, one of sexual promiscuity, selfishness, and a deep craving for love which he pursued in all of the wrong places. I was not yet in love, and I hated myself for the sluggishness of my desires. In love with loving, I was casting about for something to love because I was inwardly starved of the food which is yourself. Oh, my God. I had no desire for the food that does not perish, not because I had my fill of it, but because the more empty I was, the more I turned from it in revulsion.

My soul's health was consequently poor. It was covered with sores and flung itself out of doors, longing to soothe its misery by rubbing against sensible things. Yet these were soulless and so could not be truly loved. Here he reflects the dreary emptiness of his soul carved out by these intense longings and cravings to be loved. All the women he slept with, the intellect with which he prided himself, all of his adrenaline pumping criminal behavior, none of it satisfied his persistent longings for fulfillment and love, and yet, out of compulsion, he kept going down these same roads.

He kept doing these same things and flinging his soul, as he said, at earthly things like sex, riches, and fame. So this this is what it means to be a dead branch, to be dead in sin. Yet, what does it look like to be truly be dead to sin, to be alive branch? Well, what does it say in Ephesians two verse four? Paul says, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.' In Romans six, verses six and seven, he says, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be For one who has died has been set free from sin.' Then to verse 11 he says, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. So if we have repented, turned from our sins, and trusted in Christ, then according to Paul, we have been crucified with Christ. It means our not only has Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, but our corrupted flesh has been crucified with Christ on the cross. It's been nailed to the wood, put to death, killed, no longer to have any control over us. Being alive to God means living in light of your death on the cross with Christ and joining with Christ in the new life of the resurrection.

Let me say that again. Being alive to God means living in light of your death on the cross with Christ and joining with Christ in the new life of the resurrection. And this indestructible life of Christ will inevitably overflow, boiling over with unshakable hope, supernatural peace, and sweet, sweet joy. Augustine, after his conversion, said, but you, Lord, are good and merciful, and your right hand plumbed the depths of my death, draining the cesspit of corruption in my heart. How sweet did it suddenly seem to me to shrug off those sweet frivolities, and how glad I now was to get rid of them.

For it was you who cast them out from me. You are real and all surpassing sweetness. You cast them out and entered yourself to take their place. You who are lovelier than any pleasure. However, a live branch can still be tested by fire.

Satan can still hold up his torch underneath you to see whether or not you will catch. But if you are abiding in the vine, if you are deeply rooted in him, then the living spirit of God, like nutrient filled waters, flows through your veins and protects you from the enemy's fire. Secondly, are you down or are you attached to the vine? This is closely tied with the first trait of good firewood, of course, namely dead. A branch that has fallen cannot survive long, for it no longer remains in its source of water, nutrients, and sustenance.

If a stick had a will, no matter how hard it tried, it could not bear leaves or fruit. A branch apart from the vine cannot and will not be fruitful, no matter how much rain or sunshine it gets. If a branch is not in the vine, then it cannot have life. In other words, if it doesn't have the consistent flow of life through it, no life will grow from it. If it doesn't have a consistent flow of life through it, no life will grow from it.

In the same way, in Romans eight verse seven and eight, Paul writes, 'For the mind that is set on flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.' Those who are in the flesh, dead in sin, cannot submit to the heart of God's law, which is the love of God and of neighbor. If you are in the flesh, meaning willfully lord of your own life and seeking any opportunity to gratify the desires of your flesh whenever they arise, taking whatever chances you can at satisfying these cravings that you know aren't good and aren't right, then you are a stick on the ground, a branch apart from the vine. Yet this is more close to home than some of you might think.

Many of you know I'm a Wheaton College student, and so I'm surrounded by intelligent Christians all the time. You know, we pray in class, oftentimes to start the period up. We often we learn material from a Christian worldview. We have chapel three times a week, and and yet amidst all these good Christian things, there is a real danger. And what this danger is, is that somebody can think that they are a branch rooted in the vine when they are merely a stick nearby the thriving life of the vine?

One can be surrounded by the thriving life of the vine and its branches, and yet herself be unattached, perhaps hanging in between a couple branches, dangling by a thread of wood, or merely laying on the soil in which the vine is planted. As soon as a gust of wind blows, the stick will fall. It will blow away, completely separated from the vine, its protection. It's almost as if going to chapel, praying in class, hanging with Christians, is rain that falls wetting the surface of the fallen branch, giving it a temporary appearance of moisture, or its contact with the soil, giving it a deceiving feel of groundedness. Yet the rain will dry up, the wind will inevitably blow, and unless the branch is strongly affixed to the vine itself, it will die.

Its fallenness will become clear as day. For example, a loose stick could be someone who feigns passion, who fakes a spiritual sincerity amidst a group of friends, or perhaps with a romantic partner for the sake of personal gain. It could be someone at a spirit filled worship night who, because of everybody around him, feels the pressure to raise his or her hands in order not to show a genuine love for the Lord, but out of their fear of reputation among others, and what other people will think. I know in the past I've felt that burden. My question to you is, is it possible that you have been going to church, you perhaps even go to the Bible study, you even read the Bible occasionally, and yet you yourself aren't personally attached to the vine, the source of life.

Perhaps you're reaping the benefits from living branches around you, yet something is still missing. You you lack the same joy, the same love for worship, for Jesus, for other people like the other Christians around you. If there's any shred of possibility of this being you, call out to the vinedresser to graft you in. Call out to God to pick you up and to bind you to his his perfect son, Jesus Christ, in whom endless grace is found. He is so willing, so excited, so ready to accept you into his big loving arms.

For whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Firstly, we asked, are you dead or alive? We just finished asking, are we down or are we attached to the vine? Thirdly, are you dry? Perhaps you're you are attached to the vine, you've borne fruit in the past, but you've recently experienced a dry bout.

Perhaps you're struggling to bear fruit and maybe aren't sure what's going on. Maybe you're frustrated with the ups and downs in your joy. You know, the Bible commands, Rejoice in the Lord always, and yet sometimes it seems like there's a disconnect between that command and our experience. I mean, personally, I often feel frustrated with the inconsistency of my sensing of God's presence in really tangible ways, whether it's in worship or prayer. Sometimes something just doesn't seem like it was before.

Now I'll have a mountain high moment, an awesome time with the Lord, and then the next day it feels like I'm just going through the motions. I don't know if this relates to any of you, but what I do know is that some of this is an inevitable part of living on this earth. God gives us those blissful moments, what Os Guinness calls signals of transcendence, in order to give us a foretaste of what heaven is going to be like. C. S.

Lewis once said, if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. He said, if we find ourselves with the desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. We all have the desire to experience perfect joy, happiness, and love, however much we want to admit it or not, and we all get occasional glimpse glimpses of these heavenly realities, which often seem to pass away as soon as they come. But this is precisely because this isn't our home. We were made for another world.

We were made for eternity with him whose very essence is love and joy. But there is another dryness, more extended dryness, that exists within the branches. During the life of a vine, there are seasons. During the winter, the vine often parts of it, branches die and lose their ability to bear fruit. So what does a good vinedresser do?

Well, he prunes the vine in order to later pave the way for the life of the vine to flow through it and allow it to bear fruit. There are multiple purposes for pruning, but I will be talking about one particular angle of it. In John verse 15, verse two, he says, Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. So in the beginning of the summer, I was with my dad. We were out in our backyard and I was attempting at helping him garden.

If any of you know, my dad loves gardening and that is something that has not come through my blood, but I was trying to help him out to be a good son. And he called me over to one of the many fig trees we have and began to prune it. Now, this was revolutionary to me because I had read this passage, I had heard pruning, but it was some vague, misty metaphor in my in my head that I didn't really grasp, it didn't really materialize until I saw this taking place. And so what he would do in this process, he would look at this tree, he would examine the branches to see which one of them lacked signs of vitality, or of life, or leaves, or fruit, and he would trim them. He would cut it at a certain point and then look to see whether there's moisture and life flowing from the scissor that he cut.

This was so cool. It all made sense at this point. Of course, the dry parts were blocking the way for the life to flow through the branch in order for it to sprout with leaves and fruit. If branches felt, pruning would hurt. Imagine somebody who was climbing in climbing in Mount Everest, they get lost and they get frostbite, and their frostbite extends throughout their entire arm, and no longer there's no blood flow, it's the worst degree of frostbite.

What is often the best thing to do in this scenario? Well, amputate it. That is what you're supposed to do in order to prevent further damage or spread. Would that hurt? I think so.

In the same way, Christ promises pruning if we are branches that have been in him. He promises us that we will experience this if we are in him, precisely because he wants us to bear fruit. It's not him trying to get, out at us, trying to hurt us for no reason, trying to allow us to experience suffering and pain for no reason, or disciplining us for no reason. But as a father, he does this because he wants us to grow. Yet if a branch has no dryness, disease, or decay, oftentimes there's not much reason for pruning.

There are other cases, but generally in this life, we are, in the same way, never gonna be completely clean from sin. Right? We are still tainted by sin. It affects the world we live in, and because of that, because our bodies aren't immortal, these bodies, we will continually be pruned by God for the rest of this life. So if you feel dry, if you feel like something's awry, there is good news.

And I wanna encourage you to not give up praying. Don't give up continually seeking God faithfully in his word. Ask God the dangerous prayer of prune me, Lord. Prune me of anything that displeases you, anything that grieves your spirit, anything that negatively affects my brothers and sisters in Christ or this body that you've entrusted me, which you call your temple, the temple of your spirit. Pray as the psalmist did in Psalm 139 verses twenty three and twenty four.

He says, Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Know that God loves to discipline his children because he wants to see them grow. As the author of Hebrews writes in chapter 12 verse 11, for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Have you been trained by the fruit of righteousness, through discipline?

Right now, you might be in the process of being pruned. It might be a painful, uncomfortable process, and yet amidst the dryness, amidst the pain, know that his promises are true. Ask boldly in faith. May we ask boldly in faith, believing that he will come down, cut off the dry pieces of our soul, opening a floodgate of worship, praise, and overwhelming peace. So to recap, three questions are, one, are you dead or alive?

Two, are we down or firmly rooted in the vine? And thirdly, are we dry? And if so, what are we gonna do about it? How many of you wanna live for Christ? Let's get a raise of hands.

How many of you wanna live for Christ? How many of you know that is a hopeless task? Unless you first live from Christ. Before you can live for Christ, you must live from him. Until you live from Christ, you cannot live for him.

Charles Spurgeon reflected one evening about how he changed from sinner to saint, how he began to live from Christ. The thought struck me, he says. How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord, but how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment.

There should not have been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, how came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so?

Then in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all. And at that point, he was the author of my faith. And so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire this to be my constant confession. I ascribe my change wholly to God. And as Calvin said, the supernatural grace of God does not grant us permission to live in the flesh, it supplies power to live in the spirit.

I'll say that again. Grace does not grant us permission to live in the flesh, but supplies the power to live in the spirit. And apart from his grace, we cannot. We cannot. What did Spurgeon realize here?

That God was at the bottom of it all. But what does that mean? Well, that his conversion, his Christian life, all his obedience, the good things that he did, none of it could be attributed to himself. It's all because of the vine in whom he found life. By abiding by abiding in the vine, he received life giving sap blossoming into a lavish garden of exquisite fruit, but not a single fruit in this garden could he attribute to himself.

All of it was because of him, the vine from whom all life flows. All of it came from him from whom he lived. In John eight twelve, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. He also calls us the light of the world in Matthew five fourteen.

How is this possible? How can we shine the light into the world? Do we have any light in ourselves? We don't. So how is this possible?

Exactly. Christ expect us to live from him, live so close to him, live in such intimacy with him that we absorb his light and reflect it out into the world around us. Just as the moon doesn't have light of its own, but takes the light of the sun and reflects it out, we too must absorb Christ's light from spending time with him, from getting to know him as our friend. And then we can shine this light to the world. He is the everlasting light.

And just as Moses shone after spending time with Yahweh on Mount Sinai, we too can have that same radiance. In John six thirty five, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. In verse 53, he says, truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. Friends, let us eat our full in Christ, and thus have fullness of life. Let us eat our full in him, and be so full of his life.

In John four fourteen, he says, Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him, a fount of water springing up into eternal life. Guys, let us drink from Christ, the fount of living waters, and thus have a fountain of our own bursting forth from our souls with inexpressible joy. Let us abide in him. Find our nourishment, our meaning, our purpose, our value, our identity, our destiny in Christ.

Let us heed his words. Abide in me. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. There's nothing we can do for him apart from him.

There's nothing we can do for him apart from him. There's nothing we can do for the vine apart from the vine. You cannot love. You cannot experience joy. You cannot have fulfillment in anything you do, whether it's your work, whether it's sports, hobbies, relationships.

You cannot really do any good in the world apart from the vine. You cannot live a life for Christ if you are not established in the life of Christ. You cannot live a life for Christ if you are not established in the life of Christ. Colossians three four says, when Christ, who is your life, appears, you also will appear with him in glory. So my final words for you all this morning are may we be a people who don't just have God, don't have Christ as part of our lives, but may he be our lives.

May he be the whole of our lives. May we be, as Peter says, partakers of the divine nature, joining into the eternal loving dance of the Trinity, Filling ourselves up with this love, with this joy, with this energy, so that no matter what troubles, no matter what pain, no matter what struggle, or any trial you could face, any temptation that you can face, we will then be equipped equipped with the life of Christ and the peace and the power of the infinite God. And lastly, may we live our lives from him, the true vine, because only in him can we truly be alive and not dead. Only in him can we be in the vine and not down, and only in him can we be saturated and drenched in the living spirit of God and not dry. Let's pray.

Dear merciful father, you are so good to us. You are so gracious and mighty and yet you give us a high calling. Lord, we cannot bear fruit on our own. We cannot live for you and so we call out to you. We ask that you will graft us in to the vine.

Give us the life that comes only from you. Rid us, prune us from anything that is impure, anything that is evil or gross in us because we are so full of so much wickedness, God. But we wanna be clean. We wanna be fruitful. And so we ask you to prune us.

Give us strength to endure. And Lord, we ask that you alone will make us alive. Make us so close to Christ that we shine his light so brightly into the world around us. And make us drenched, fill us with your spirit so that we may go out to love and serve you and everybody around us. And we pray all these things trusting in the name of Jesus alone.

Amen.