Sixth Sunday of Easter – Year A
Isaiah 41:17–20
Psalm 148
I Peter 3:8–18
John 15:1–11
Good morning, friends. Happy Mother’s Day to you moms and also to you spiritual mothers who mentor and counsel the younger generations. May God continue to fill you with wisdom and strength as you are a blessing to others.
For those who may have broken or strained relationships with their children or with their moms, may the love of Jesus do the miraculous work of healing and reconciliation in your lives.
You will see in your service leaflet that Acts 17 was an option for us this morning. It is the account of Paul’s time in Athens, Greece. I will, with God’s help, be going to Greece this October to trace Paul’s second missionary journey, which includes his stop in Athens. There is nothing like reading the Scriptures where they happened.
I was very tempted to use the Acts reading today as an opportunity to tell you stories from last year’s Greece tour, to share some of what I learned as we traced Paul’s steps.
However, I could not in good consciousness set aside the riches of John 15 and timeliness of 1 Peter 3.
We live in a world that – if we let it – is constantly screaming something at us. Through our phones, computers, TVs, and radios, the messages range from buy this, do that. You need to believe this, you must support this candidate. Shop now. This new app will save you time. That politician is crazy. Can you believe what that celebrity did?
And maybe from our family, friends, and co-workers, we’re hearing: you still go to church? How can you believe all that superstition? Why won’t you go party with me? Yeah, Jesus is all right, but there are other ways to God. You’re so old fashioned in your beliefs.
In the midst of this cacophony, the still small voice is whispering to us: Abide in me. I love you. Abide in my love.
How do we abide in Christ? How do we abide in Jesus?
First, let’s look at that word abide.
The idea is is “to remain stable or fixed in a state.”[1] It is to dwell. Our word abode is related to abide. You abide in an abode, in a dwelling. So we could say Jesus is telling us to live with him in his household. We’re part of the family of God, so stay in the family, make your home in God’s love.
But Jesus takes it a step further by using the picture of the vine. It’s not just “be part of the household.” When Jesus says he is the vine and we are the branches, he’s saying we’re intimately united with him.[2] We are attached to him, and he’s calling us to stay attached to him.
If Jesus is the vine, he is the source of our life, the source of our nourishment, our whole existence. We are branches that cannot survive in the hot sun of this world without the food and water that flows through him to us.
Neither can we have any productivity in this life, true productivity. The fruitfulness many people in our society are pursuing is a high salary, a big house, a nice car, fancy food in the fridge.
What does Jesus mean when he says we can bear much fruit in him? He says:
8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 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.
The fruitfulness Jesus is looking for has to do with love, and love has to do with obedience. Obedience to what?
1 Peter 3 has an answer for us, but before we go over there, I want to remind you of a truth. We are called to obey as a response to the love of God. We do not obey to gain the love of God nor to gain our salvation.
We love him because he first loved us. When we accept his love, his salvation, he asks us to love him back by trusting his love and his wisdom and doing what he says.
What he asks us to do is not arbitrary or selfish. The things he asks us to do 1) makes us more like Jesus, the object of our love and 2) will draw others to love Jesus.
1 Peter is a letter written to communities that are living in a hostile society. It’s not that the government is persecuting the Christians. Rather, the believers are increasingly distancing themselves from a society whose behavior does not align with the values of Christ.[3] And their neighbors are noticing that there is this group of people not conforming to the rhythms and mores of the society.
Maybe they were saying:
- Hey, I didn’t see you at the temple this year to offer incense to the emperor? How come? That seems like a dangerous thing to skip.
- How come I never see you at the gladiator games any more? You used to love watching the fights to the death.
- You’re crazy not to be eating meat anymore. There were some nice cuts available during the Feast of Aphrodite.
Today, maybe we’re hearing:
- You give how much away to charity? You’re crazy!
- Why did you talk to that homeless guy? They’re just a bunch of bums.
- Why do you waste your time visiting prisoners at the jail? They got what they deserve.
Each of you can think of that thing you do or don’t do, that thing you say or won’t say, that causes friction with the non-believers around you. Sometimes it’s more than friction. Sometimes it’s mockery or an insult. Sometimes it’s a lost relationship. It could be, though rarely for us, loss of a job or some other opportunity.
If your faith in Christ has cost you (and it should), Peter is talking to you.
Peter reminds us to have sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind toward those who cannot yet see Jesus and cannot begin to understand why we go against the flow of society for Jesus.
Peter reminds us that retaliation for insult and mockery is not the Jesus way. The Jesus way is to bless those who curse us, to forgive those who mock us. When we bless those that revile us, God blesses us.
What was it Jesus said?
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven… (Matt 5)
To be meek, merciful, and long-suffering in the face of hostility and insult is not easy. We have Jesus as our example, but it is still not easy.
How do we do it? We abide in the vine. We abide in Jesus.
How do we abide?
We ask God for help. Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you to be like Jesus. Peter is exhibit A of the power of the Holy Spirit to transform a life. Peter goes from brash and impetuous then cowardly disciple to bold proclaimer of the gospel, bold enough to literally follow Jesus to the cross in his martyrdom. Peter’s character pivots when he receives the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
To abide in Jesus, we must flee from evil and we also must purse godliness. Paul tells Timothy, flee sin and “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life…” (1 Tim 6:11-12) The fight of faith is subduing our selfish impulses to retaliate, to justify ourselves, to get our own way and instead respond to insults with gentleness and mercy, to think of the other before we think of ourself. We take hold of eternal life when we show love, when we trust God in the face of adversity.
We pursue godliness by caring for the poor and needy, when we care for the stranger and the prisoner. We pursue righteousness when we seek justice for the oppressed in our society. We pursue faith when we spend time in prayer, Bible study, and fellowship with fellow believers. We pursue love when we do all these things.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that we can earn eternal life by works. Eternal life is a gift handed to us by God. It is ours through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. We grab a hold of the gift by pursing a Jesus-shaped life, by pursing godliness. We pursue Jesus, and we show him our love by following his commandments.
Which commandments? Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. And a third one: Love one another as I have loved you.
- Love God with all you are and have.
- Love your neighbor as yourself.
- Love your brothers and sister in Christ as he loved us.
That last one. How has Jesus loved us?
He left his heavenly place and entered this mucky world to find us. He rescued us before we loved him. He died for us.
He gave himself for us as a suffering servant. Peter says this in chapter 2:
the Messiah … suffered, on your behalf, leaving an example so that you should follow in his steps.
22 “He committed no sin,
nor was any deceit found on his lips.”
23 When he was insulted, he didn’t retaliate with insults; when he suffered, he didn’t threaten, but handed them over to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the [cross], so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness — by his wounds you were healed. 25 For you used to be like sheep gone astray, but now you have turned to the Shepherd, who watches over you. (1 Pet 2:21-25 CJB)
We live in a world that is constant screaming something at us.
In the midst of this cacophony, the still small voice is whispering to us: Abide in me. I love you. Abide in my love.
Let us cling to the Suffering Servant, the lover of our souls, who bids us to die to our selfish desires. Let us learn from him how to persevere in our hostile world and bear the fruit of love for him, for each other, and for those who do not yet know him.
Let us pray.
Jesus, Son of David, Son of God: We hold up all our weakness to your strength, our failures to your faithfulness, our sinfulness to your perfection, our loneliness to your compassion, our little pains to your great agony on the Cross. We pray that you will cleanse us, strengthen us, guide us, so that in all ways our lives may be lived as you would live, without cowardice and for the glory of God the Father. Show us how to live in true humility, true contrition, and true love. Amen.
Footnotes
[1] “Abide.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abide. Accessed 9 May. 2026.
[2] Rodney A. Whitacre, John, vol. 4 of The IVP New Testament Commentary Series (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 371.
[3] Joel B. Green, 1 Peter, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 9.