Charge over the tender plant

Jordan’s Christmas Day sermon, 2011:

“The idea of loving your neighbor is not something new. It’s not a new concept, but how do you do it? Jesus Christ’s going to put His spirit in them and His spirit is going to give them the capacity to fulfill the law. That’s what the new covenant does. It writes His spirit in them. The new commandment is a new covenant issue.

“Here’s a verse that ties the rag on the bush about that. Matthew 5:43. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, is talking about this lifestyle of the citizens of His kingdom and one of the characteristics He demonstrates here is, ‘You’re going to have this spontaneous ability to live for one another.’

“It’s not going to be something you have to calculate; it’s just going to be the way life is. That’s the way the life in the godhead functions--instantly, spontaneously and forever.

“He said, ‘Look, the law said that, but I’m giving you a new standard to go by. I’m going to intensify this thing and I’m going to . . .’ How do you do that? ‘Well, I’m going to put my life into you—I’m going to write my law into you.’ James calls it the perfect law of liberty.

‘I’m going to take that thing and put it into you. How? By my spirit.’ The issue fundamentally is, whether it’s Israel or us, it’s got to be Israel in Christ and us in Christ and it’s got to be His life lived out through us because no matter whose other flesh we’re related to, or other identity we’re related to, we’re all related to Adam. We all have that spiritual disqualification that comes from Him that can only be rectified in the spiritual status that we get in the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Jesus Christ is fixing this moment, this evening, of this text, to go and surrender Himself. That’s why He takes these Apostles with Him when He leaves the Upper Room. He takes them all the way to the garden with Him in John 18 and they watch Him; they witness Him surrender in obedience.

“Peter comes to his defense in John 18:11. Paul says ‘He humbled Himself and was obedient unto the death of the Cross.’ He loves the Father and depends upon His Word and trusts Him and He draws from the resources of His Word. And He says, ‘Now that’s the life you’re going to have. Trust the Father’s Word. Trust what God’s plan is. Depend on it and draw from the resources that it gives you and you can be the people you’re chosen and created to be.’

“John 15:1. Now that’s an interesting verse because you need to kind of appreciate what He’s saying: ‘I am the true vine.’ When He says He’s the true vine, if you go back to Chapter one, He talks about how John was a light but I’m the true light. In chapter six He says that Moses gave the manna, the bread from heaven, but ‘I’m the true bread.’

“He’s not saying, ‘There’s the false one and I’m the correct one.’ He’s saying, ‘I’m the authentic REAL one. I’m the ultimate enduring reality. I’m what everything else pointed to and looked at. I’m the real deal and where the real vine is is me.’

“The vine tree in Scripture is one of four distinct trees used to represent the life of the nation Israel in four distinct ways. The vine tree looks at the nation as an earthly nation.

“The reason he used that here, I suppose, is exactly the point I’ve been trying to make, which is He’s now focusing on the disciples: ‘I’m going away! I’m leaving you here on the earth and you’re going to be my nation in the earth. But it’s not just any nation. I’m the true nation. You have to be in me to be the real Israel of God. I’m the true vine. My father is the husbandman.’

“Husbandry has to do with gardening. And the husbandman (and it’s interesting you have the husband and the wife); it’s interesting that God would use that terminology of a husband to describe the role that we ascribe to a husband.

“But a husbandman in the Scripture is someone who cultivates and cares for a garden. Sort of the caretaker. When I read this verse and I just, I was thinking this afternoon, you know . . .

“Dec. 25 is the time of the incarnation, time of the conception of Christ when God literally steps out of heaven into man’s earth and takes on our humanity. I was thinking about that in relation to verse 1.

“That’s saying that God the Father was the caretaker for the Lord Jesus Christ. When He’s the husbandman of the vine and Jesus said, ‘I’m the vine,’ He’s literally saying, ‘You know, I’m doing this stuff to do what my Father gave me to do. He gave me a commandment. And my Father is the one who is taking care of me who’s jealous over watching over me and my development; my growth.’

“Now there’s a verse back in Isaiah 53 that kind of alerts you to that. Isaiah 53:1. The Messiah’s going to grow up before Him. That is, the father is as a tender plant and as a root out of the dry ground.

"You see how that starts talking about Him being a tender plant and a root out of a dry ground? There’s that horticulture terminology. There’s the husbandman. And what’s the father do? He’s overseeing; he’s tending. He’s watching out for him and he watches out for his development.

“Matthew 1. Christ literally enters into a personal combat with Satan. When He’s then going to be smitten of God and have our sin placed on Him. When He goes through all the accusations and all the attempts to derail Him. He has that confidence that, ‘I’m doing what the Father told me to do. I’m just going to trust Him; depend on Him. He’s watching over me. He’s got it planned and I’ll trust Him.’

“When I think about that, to me, it’s one of the most staggering things with regard to how He humbled himself to do that. And that’s what exalts Him. Because He humbled Himself, Paul said, therefore God is highly exalted. But this stuff’s real.

“Matthew 1:18. His whole life He’s demonstrating this. It wasn’t hanky-panky; it was something miraculous. Luke 1. When that happens, ‘Voila! She’s pregnant!’ That speaks volumes about Joseph. Instead of thinking about himself and the shock and the horror and the hurt and the betrayal that he could have felt, he still looking out after her good.

“And he made those decisions before verse 20 took place. ‘But while he thought on these things.’ Things that are testing his mettle. God the Father wasn’t going to let His Son be raised by a man who didn’t have some character.

"‘Behold in a dream Joseph, Mary thy wife conceived.’ The Lord Jesus Christ was willing to come and become a babe, at this point even in just the womb of His mother, but he says, ‘My father is the husbandry. My father watches out for me.’

“After He’s born, the wise men come. All His life He’s got the Father watching over Him. Those verses back in Psalm 91 talk about God giving His angels charge over Him. Literally that’s talking about the Messiah.

“Matt. 3:16. I’ve pointed out to you when we’ve studied through Luke; in Luke 3 he says it a little differently. Matthew’s interested in the public pronouncement of the Father endorsing His Son: this is Him. But Luke says it in such a way where he wasn’t talking to the crowd. He says, ‘Thou art my beloved son.’

“In other words, what the Father does is He makes the public pronouncements so everyone knows, but He also puts His arms around His son and says, ‘You’re mine. You’re doing my will. You’re on my mission.’ They had that kind of a symbiotic relationship; that kind of an oneness.”