You Can Do Nothing | The Gospels | John 15:1-17

[music] Welcome to 10 Minute Bible Talks. Where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Sometimes when I go to the grocery store, I buy flowers for my wife. They put the little floral section right at the entrance of the store and I think they do that for guys like me. So that as soon as I enter and right before I leave, I see flowers and I can ask myself, "Is there anyone I should buy these for?" I try to find some that I think my wife will like that don't cost too much money. I bring them home, but really she has usually had to do the hard work of like cutting them and finding the right vase and getting them situated so they look good. I've been trying to get better at that. Like I've been trying to find the vase and put the food packet in and all that stuff. It's not that hard, but I have the ability to screw up even things that shouldn't be difficult. Well, that little food packet you put in, that keeps the flowers looking better for a longer period of time, but even that doesn't last. Christine keeps the flowers that I get her probably for a little too long and they start to wilt and droop and don't look that great and then we throw them out. Flowers like a lot of things in our world have a shelf life. When I bought those flowers, they were already dying. They were surviving on borrowed time. Those flowers were dying the moment they were cut because the instant the stem was severed from the plant, it lost the one connection that could actually keep it alive. So those few days of beauty on your kitchen table, well, they're not really the flower being alive. There's a slow reveal of a death that's already happened. The flower just hasn't found out about it yet. And John 15, Jesus uses similar imagery to show us something about our lives that feels unsettling. He says that a branch can look attached even though it's already been cut off from the vine. Here's John 15 verses 4 and 5. 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. The line that gets me every single time I read it is apart from me, you can do nothing. It's encouraging and freeing at the same time. Now Jesus shared this truth with his disciples the night before he was crucified. He was in the upper room sharing communion with his friends and these are some of the last private words that he ever said to them. He's just hours away from being arrested. So get this. He's not standing at a white board. He's not kind of handing out a new productivity strategy. He's not giving them tips for a more effective life. He's telling the people he loves how they're going to be able to survive once he is no longer physically present with them. And what he gives them is the last of the great I am statements in John's Gospel. We've seen Jesus say I am the bread of life or I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd and now he says I am the true vine. Why does Jesus call himself the true vine? Well, the vine was not a new image to the people who are familiar with the Old Testament. I mean, all throughout the Old Testament Israel was called God's vine. God planted it, God tended it, and God built a wall around it to protect it. God planted a vineyard in Israel and looked for good fruit. And the heartbreak of the Old Testament is that the vine kept failing. It produced wild grapes, sour fruit, or sometimes no fruit at all. So when Jesus says I am the true vine, He is saying that he is the vine that finally does what the vine was always meant to do. He succeeds where Israel fails. He's the one who bears the fruit God has been looking for since the beginning. See, you got to make sure you get the order right. And Jesus says abide in me and you will bear much fruit. Before this is ever about us bearing fruit, it is about him being the source and the power. He is the vine, we are the branches. If you get that order right, these verses are good news. If you get it wrong, if you invert it, if you get it backwards, these verses will crush you. We'll come back to that in a second. But let's just break these verses down by starting with the hardest part first. Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. He doesn't say you can do less or apart from me, you can't quite do as much or apart from me, you'll be running it maybe 60%. He says, apart from me, you can do nothing. And I think he means at least three things. The first is this, apart from him, you can do nothing that pleases God. Now, I need to say carefully what this doesn't, doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that your effort is worthless or that nothing you do has any value to anyone. What it means is that God receives our work the way a good human father receives a gift from his child. He looks at the relationship, not the product. A father isn't evaluating the macaroni art on its artistic merits. He loves it because of whose hands made it and the love behind it. As scripture says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. It says, whatever is not from faith is sin. So a branch can be unbelievably busy, like a religiously busy, morally busy, impressively busy and still bearing in the one sense that finally matters. It doesn't please God. The second thing he means, by apart from him, you can do nothing. Is that you can do nothing that lasts. Think back about those cut flowers sitting on the kitchen table. Here's the uncomfortable truth. Apart from the vine, you can still produce things. You can still build a career. You can look good. You can build a platform or a reputation. You can build a following, a portfolio. You can build a ministry. But just like that cut flower, it looks alive for a while and then it's gone. And Jesus says he chose us so that we would bear fruit that lasts. The world can help you grow things that look impressive for a season and then wilt. Christ produces fruit that lasts for eternity. And the third thing, apart from him, you can do nothing. Means is that you can do nothing truly good. Because when you do things in your own power, you end up cropping it. The generous act quietly becomes you being seen as generous. Or we become proud of our humility. I had a guy yesterday, tell me that he was proud that he had grown more humble. And then he started laughing because he realized how ridiculous it sounded. And yet that's all of us. See, apart from being connected to Jesus, even the good things we try to do slowly become about us, it just can't be helped. But here's the problem and it's a really big problem. Apart from me, you can do nothing does not feel true. And that's why it's so dangerous. Because the honest reality is that apart from God, we do an enormous amount of things. The branch lying on the ground still has green leaves for several days. It still looks viable. Self-sufficiency is incredibly convincing right up until the wilting starts. And that's why this is so easy to miss. The problem is never that we feel helpless without God. The problem is that we feel perfectly capable without him. At least for a while. So the question Jesus is pressing isn't, "Are you busy?" Of course you're busy. The question is, "Are you connected to Jesus?" "Are you producing fruit that matters, fruit that lasts, fruit that pleases God?" Okay, so if apart from whom we can do nothing, what's the alternative? And Jesus says it plainly, "Whoever abides in me and dying him, he it is that bears much fruit." It's possible to turn this promise into a burden. And here's how you would do that. We hear the word abide. Which other translations have as remain or stay. And we instantly turn that into a new command. And now we get anxious about it. And now we lie awake and think, "Am I abiding enough? Did I abide hard enough today?" What's the new technique for abiding? Why don't I feel more abiding? And just like that, we've taken the gospel and turned it back into a performance. We've made abiding one more thing to be good at. So let the picture of those flowers fix that for us. But let's go back to the verses for a second. Abide in me and I am you. I am the vine, you are the branches. Look at the branch. Does a branch strain to produce grapes? Does a branch grids teeth and clench and try really hard to manufacture fruit? No, of course not. The branch doesn't have a technique. It doesn't have some method it follows. It doesn't even know how grapes are made. A branch has one job and that job is to stay attached, to stay connected to the vine and let the life of the vine float through it. The fruit is not the branch's achievement. The fruit is the vine's own life showing up at the end of the branch. So when Jesus says abide, he's not saying try harder. He's saying the opposite. He's saying stay dependent. Keep receiving. Don't detach yourself from Jesus. Don't try to be your own source. So words like abide and remain and stay are repeated throughout this chapter. These are relational words. Abiding is less like climbing a ladder and more like spending time together, enjoying a relationship with someone. The promise is that if we abide in Jesus, if we remain connected to Jesus, we will bear fruit. But what exactly is the fruit? Well, the very next thing Jesus talks about is love. And Paul says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The fruit isn't so much about things you'd put on your resume as much as it is the kind of person you're becoming. So what do you do? Well, of course, abide in Jesus. Stay connected to Him. Now that doesn't happen by accident, especially in our crazy world. Remaining in Jesus means being in Scripture, praying, being a part of church, sharing in the Lord's supper, worshiping with other Christians, serving. These are ways that we can be close to God. You open the Bible not to be a good Christian, but to be with Jesus, to be fed, to be nourished. And God has promised to meet you in those places. See the very night that Jesus said, apart from me, you can do nothing. He was only hours away from the cross. The cross that would make this whole union between the vine and the branches, between us and Jesus possible in the first place. The same Jesus who tells you that apart from Him, you can do nothing is the one who gave everything, so that you would never have to be apart from Him. So the invitation is not to try harder. The invitation is to stay, to stay where the life is, to remain connected to the vine, and let Him bear fruit through you, fruit that is good, fruit that lasts. [Music]