Person of Dependence in Culture of Can do Arrogance 012

Becoming A Person of Dependence in a Culture of Can-Do Arrogance

Restoring the Savor of Our Salt Series       Message # 12

We are continuing in our series of messages today dealing with the overall theme of restoring the savor of our salt as we confront the culture in which we live. We’ve been talking about the fact that our lives are shaped either by our faith, or by our culture. The reality that we are in someone’s mold. Everyone is in someone’s mold. That’s the bad news. But the good news is, we can choose our mold. We can choose who we would have be molding us, and we have been looking for a number of weeks now at doing the very hard work of climbing out of the culture’s mold and doing the very intentional work of climbing into the mold of the Word of God.

I want to read to you Romans 12:1-2 just as we begin and then we’ll look at John chapter 15 together. Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

This is the core passage we’ve been centered in as we’ve been thinking about having our lives be molded by God.

Today I want to turn to yet another area of having our lives molded by God—the area of dependence. We’re thinking about being a person of dependence in a culture of can-do arrogance.  John 15:1-5 please as we think about this concept.

John 15, verse 1. The Lord Jesus is speaking to His disciples and to us as well. He said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2  Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3  Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

One man relates his testimony that he has lived most of his life just an eyelash short of real success. It started, he said, in grade school. When he graduated from high school, he was a couple of hundredths of a grade point average under 3.0. And in the high school he attended, they graduated students in two sets. Those at 3.0 and above were graduated first, and then they started through the alphabet again with those under 3.0. He was just a couple of hundredths of a point away from making it into the top section. When he graduated from college, he was a couple of hundredths of a grade point away from honors. When he graduated from graduate school, again he was a couple of hundredths of a grade point away from the honors graduation. He went for a doctorate in his field and needed an A in the final course to have a 4.0 average. He got a B plus. He says that he cannot remember how many times he had shown up two minutes later for a store to close. He cannot recall how many times he felt just that far on the outside of a group of folks. In fact, in his testimony, he says there is probably no one in the nation who has more experiences than he has had of falling just barely short of success. It became a theme of his life. In the beginning when he first figured it out, it angered him, frustrated him, and he fought it continually. Then he came to a period of life when he resigned himself to it, and thought, why worry yourself fighting this thing. Finally, he came to a time in his life where he decided that it was probably one of the greatest blessings he has ever known.

Hearing that testimony, you may be thinking, why would a person call falling just short of real success a blessing at all, much less one of the greatest of blessings? Why would anyone consider this lifelong theme of being just an eyelash short to be a great blessing in life?

The answer to that question is found in John chapter 15, and looking at the parable that the Lord Jesus told here about the vine and the Vinedresser and the branches and the fruitfulness.

First of all, we need to comprehend the American system of success. As we have been doing with nearly all these messages, I want to start by saying, here is what America thinks about success. And then we’ll look at this issue of God’s counter-system, God’s counter-culture approach by which we have the savor of our salt in place to make our world hungry for God.

First of all, the American system of success begins, number one, with a can-do arrogance. It is a frame of mind, a mindset that says I am a person with self-ability. It is a mindset that believes, I have all that I need inside me for life and for happiness and for achievement. It is a mindset that says, I am independent, gifted, capable, can-do. I can make life work.

When now California governor Arnold Schwartneggar completed his body building career, a journalist was interviewing him and said to Schwartzneggar, what do you plan to do next? I want to read you a direct quote. He said, “I am going to be the number one box office start in all Hollywood. What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then you live into that picture as if it were already true.”

I am suggesting, folks, that that is can-do arrogance. Now, it may have come close to working for Arnold Schwartzneggar. I don’t know if he ever actually achieved the number one box office star in Hollywood or not. He came close anyway. The problem with his little statement is, let’s say that all of us in this room today decided we will each individually be the number one box office hit in Hollywood. We will all begin believing it is true. We will all start living into this reality. We’re not all going to make it, folks! I doubt if any of us ever will, and of course, we will be much better off if we don’t achieve that kind of goal. But this man has a can-do arrogance which amounts to self-ability. He says, I envision what I want to be, I live as if it’s already true, and then I be the person.

This can-do arrogance, in some cases, leads to temporary success. There is some temporary American success involved in can-do arrogance. This kind of success entails a number of facets.

Let’s think about some of those quickly. First facet—money and material possessions. Some people are living with conspicuous consumption. They have a lot of money and they are buying the toys to show us that they have a lot of money.

Second Facet. Sometimes this kind of success involves a trophy spouse. The kind of woman who turns heads wherever she goes. The kind of man who looks like you won him in a raffle. That’s exactly why my wife married me. It was a white-elephant raffle!!! Will the ushers please remove that person who just laughed so loudly!

The third issue in this kind of success is the issue of clout. People saying to themselves, I want to be able to have impact. I want to be able to change stuff. No matter what it takes, no matter how slick I need to be, no matter how deceptive I need to be, no matter how dishonest I need to be, no matter how disloyal I need to be to other people, I want to have clout.

Facet four involves reputation. People saying to themselves, I want people to think of me in a certain way. I want to put a skin on my public image that gives me a certain reputation.

And facet five involves accomplishment. People piling up awards, piling up achievements, piling up businesses, piling up whatever to say, I am a successful person.

Can-do arrogance sometimes leads to success in the American system. There are two major problems with it. Problem # 1, it is all temporary. It all goes away sooner or later, usually sooner. Problem # 2, God has no commitment to those kinds of success.

If you want to invest your life in those kinds of things, you cannot count on God as a partner. Those are not things that are valuable to Him.

There is an alternative to can-do arrogance. There is an alternative to this entire nation that is worshipping the teetering god of success. That alternative is found in John chapter 15.

The Lord Jesus Christ told a parable there, and in contrast to the can-do arrogance of American success, God’s system is a system of fruitfulness. John 15 is not talking about success. It is talking about fruitfulness. It is a drastically different concept than America thinks about.

I want to investigate that idea with you and begin by saying that fruitfulness involves a number of things. First of all, John 15, I want to talk about the players in Jesus’ parable.

Number one, He said Jesus Himself is the true Vine. That basically means that Jesus is the true source of our resources and our help and our hope. A branch receives from the Vine its water, its nutrients, its support. And we are being told that Jesus Christ is the one who gives to us wisdom and direction and strength and gifts, and everything we need to be fruitful people.

It’s very interesting, He said in that verse there, I am the TRUE Vine. Chapter 15, verse 1. That means there are also false vines. There are also places and people who are saying, I can give you what you need to succeed. You should trust in me rather than trusting in Jesus Christ, and then you’ll have the things that you need.

Secondly, the second player in this parable is God the Father who is described here as the husbandman or vinedresser. He is the shaper, the molder. He is the adjuster of our lives. He is the one who watches us living through our lives and says, I need to work on him or her in this way or that way or another way. I need to bring something to bear on him to mold him into the person that I have envisioned when I rescued him.

This is an image of a farmer tending his crop very carefully. I don’t know how many of you have farming experience, probably not too many. I grew up on a farm, and around farms, and watching people working in their fields. And as you drive by and observe, as a layman, you think, how hard can that be? Drive the tractor around a few times, and when you’re done, you’re done.

Farming has a few other intricacies to it. Honestly, there is a huge amount that is totally uncontrollable—the rain, the temperature, and all of that. But in addition to what is uncontrollable, there is a great deal that is controllable. When do you plant? When do you cultivate? What do you spray with? When do you harvest? When do you sell? That may be the most complicated part—when do you sell? Farming is an incredibly difficult occupation. It requires very, very careful work.

The metaphor of John 15 is making God the Father a farmer who is dedicated to shaping and molding and cultivating our lives. God the Father is watching our lives more closely than any farmer has ever watched his crops. God the Father is cultivating our lives more carefully than any farmer has ever cultivated his crops.

I’d like to suggest to you that the uncontrollable things in our lives are not a long string of accidents and coincidences. They are the work of a Father, a farmer, who is carefully cultivating our lives, who is working in our lives to build lives of fruitfulness.

Third player in this parable—we are the third set of players, called the branches. We as the believers in Jesus Christ are the people who actually have the privilege of bearing fruit. The ones who are allowed to make an eternal difference in this world. God uses us to impact this world eternally.

Being fruitful involves eternal impact. Being successful is a pitiful product in comparison to eternal impact. The two things do not even belong in the same category. They are not comparable at all.

The final player I’d point out is the fruit in our lives which includes, I think, at least three things. Number one, the fruit in our lives includes the salvation of the souls of other people. The New Testament continually uses a metaphor of harvest to say, when I bring someone to trust Jesus Christ, I have harvested an eternal soul. I have been involved in an eternal harvest, and God calls that eternal fruit in our lives.

Being a part of leading someone to Jesus Christ is more exciting than winning the world series! If you ever lead anyone to Jesus Christ, you will be so encouraged. It will be a thrill that cannot be compared to anything else you know.

A long time ago Huckleberry Finn, in the classic book, said, “Church ain’t shucks next to the circus.” Huck Finn had been to the circus and he’d been to church, and he said, “Church ain’t shucks next to the circus.”

I want to turn that around and say, Success ain’t shucks next to leading somebody to Jesus Christ. If you have ever experienced the joy of bringing someone to spend eternity with God, it far outshines any kind of joy you can have from American success. It is a clean, encouraging, awesome, natural high that you will never get over.

The second kind of fruit. Fruitfulness in our lives involves the fruit of the Spirit worked out in our own personalities. Galatians chapter 5:22-23. Paul speaking there says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23  Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”

Part of the fruit of God in our lives is us simply growing up—growing up spiritually, growing up relationally, growing up emotionally. And God aching for us to grow up and have that kind of fruit in our lives.

The third thing I think He means by fruitfulness is that we are people who have the opportunity to build the fruit of the Spirit into the lives of other people. By being a fruitful person I can help other people mature and grow up in their lives. I do this in a number of ways. Number one, I do it by being gracious to them. If there is anything that people in America need, it is some gracious people. People who cut other people slack. Number two, I do it by being truthful, by being a person who says what is true. Number three, I do it by modeling maturity in my own life, by giving them something to look at that says, here is what it is supposed to be like. And number four, I do it by spending time with them.

Howard Hendricks said, “You can impress people at a distance, but you can only impact them up close.” When I invest in other people’s lives, I am involved in eternal fruitfulness.

Success ain’t shucks next to bringing someone to freedom and maturity. If you have ever been involved in seeing a person, a child, a disciple of yours grow in Jesus Christ to freedom and maturity, it is a natural, clean, awesome high you will never forget.  You will never forget the joy of looking at that person and saying, They are making progress!

The second issue to think about in this parable is the fact that God is deeply committed to our fruitfulness.

God aches for us to be fruitful people, to be people who are reaching others for Christ, who are maturing our own lives, and helping other people grow up, who know the joy of fruitfulness. To be people who have the satisfaction of creating things that will last forever, of bearing fruit that will be eternally valuable.

The obvious question is this—the final question I want to think about today. How do I become a fruitful person?

I’m very glad you asked that, because the answer is here in John 15:1-5. How do I become a fruitful person? Here are the conditions of fruitfulness as they are spelled out in these first five verses of John 15.

First of all, verse 3, I must be a person who is cleansed by becoming a believer in Jesus Christ. Verse 3 He said, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

The message is, the Word of God brings cleansing to my life. The Word of God condemns my sin, it instructs me about eternal life, it inspires me to holiness, it promotes growth in me. God uses His Word to make me a different person.  Verse 3 is specifically addressing the core issue of becoming what He is calling in this story a clean person. A person who has responded to the core message of the Bible, which is a very simple message. You know it well. First of all, I am a person with a sin problem. It has alienated me and distanced me from a holy God. There will be a remarkable penalty—the penalty of death and separation because of that sin problem. Number two, the Lord Jesus Christ came and paid the price for my sin. He went to the Cross as my Substitute. I was standing in line, I was ready to go up, it was my turn to be punished, and at the last minute, when I was supposed to go up, Jesus pulled me out of line and said, I’m going up for you! And when you were supposed to go up, the Lord Jesus pulled you out of line and said, I’m going up for you. When every person in the world came to the front of the line, Jesus pulled them out of the line and said, I’m going up for you. He paid the price as the Substitute for every person. He paid the price for every sin ever committed. And God is saying to us, based on that price paid, I am making to you a very simple invitation. The invitation is stop trusting whatever you have been trusting for eternal life and trust only in the work of Jesus Christ. Say to yourself, I give up on being a good person. I give up on having my good works outweigh my bad works. I give up on joining a church. I give up on getting baptized. I give up on all of that. I place all my hope in what Jesus Christ did for me on that Cross.

The first issue of fruitfulness is being a clean person, one who has trusted the Lord Jesus Christ.

The second issue comes out of verse 2. Secondly, we are people who need to be lifted up, who need to be supported, and who need to be encouraged. The word in verse 2 says, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away….”

The “taketh away” in verse 2 can also be translated “lifted up.” I believe what the Lord is saying in this parable is, making an analogy to the way vines grow, that when a branch of a vine is lying on the ground, it is not fruitful. It can’t bear fruit lying on the ground. So the vinedresser would come along and pull it up and lift it up and prop it up again onto the supports into the sunlight. What He is really saying here is, God is willing to pick us up, to hold us up, to support our lives when we are struggling, and therefore allow us another shot at fruitfulness.

Support in our lives is found fully in resting in Jesus Christ. It’s not found in drinking, not found in shopping, not found in any kind of accomplishment or achievement. It is found alone in resting in Jesus Christ.

The second condition of fruitfulness is that I be a person who takes courage and support from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Third condition, verse 2 again. Thirdly, I become a fruitful person when my life has been pruned. In the ancient near East when a vinedresser came to his vine, if he found dead wood there, he would cut it off. Dead wood promoted rot and disease.

In the analogy, I think the Father comes to our lives and He looks for those things in our lives that need to removed, that need to be cut off to avoid disease and rot. Sometimes we have extremes that have crept in, we have activities that are multiplying like cancer, we have hobbies that are overwhelming our walk with God, we have little idols that we cannot seem to let go of. We have habits, relational styles—whatever we have that is discouraging our maturity and our fruitfulness—God comes in and cuts it off.

His main tool for cutting it off is trials, adversity, difficulty. The main way that God works to prune my life is bringing difficulties into my life. In His incredible faithfulness, He looks at my life, introduces trials that I need to help me deal with the ugly places where I have drifted. He sees me in the ditch, He sees me drifting along with the current. And He brings something along to encourage me to deal with that. James chapter 1, verses 2 through 4. “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3  Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

God uses trials in our lives to clean out the dead wood. It is never a pleasant process. I have never enjoyed trials. I suspect anyone who enjoys trials and trouble needs some other kind of help! But He says, count it all joy! Rejoice that God is a faithful vinedresser who is still working in your life.

Fourthly, verses 4 and 5, if I am going to be fruitful (and here is the core of the matter, verses 4 and 5), I must be a dependent person. Not a person with can-do arrogance, but a person who is dependent. Verse 4. “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

In other words, Jesus is saying, it is only a humble spirit of trusting God that makes me fruitful. It is a mindset that says, God, if You don’t help me, then I have no other resource. I have no other way to be fruitful. I have no plan B. I am out of hope if You don’t help me.

Being fruitful involves being a person who is dependent on Jesus Christ.

And finally, fifth, being fruitful, abiding in Christ, means that I must also be a person who is also obedient. I am convinced that abiding in Christ involves two very simple things. Dependence and obedience.

1 John 3:24 defines the second part about obedience. 1 John 3:24, John says, “And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”

I need to be dependent. I need to be obedient. If I am a person who is not seeing any fruitfulness in my life, one of the first places to check is my personal obedience. It’s to say, am I a person who on a day to day basis is struggling and seeking to be consistently dependently obedient to Jesus Christ?

The corollary is, God uses dependent, obedient people. And independent, disobedient people just wear themselves out with activity. Independent, disobedient people are allowed to have ministry positions. They are allowed to be very visible people. They are allowed to do whatever they want to do. God is not going to reach in and stop them. But they are simply going to get tired. They are going to wear themselves out with activity as they persist in independent disobedience.

God uses dependent, obedient people for eternal fruitfulness, and He lets independent, disobedient people wear themselves out with activity.

I believe with all my heart, in retrospect, that falling an eyelash short of success might be one of the greatest blessings a person could ever experience in this life. As a person applies themselves to something and accomplishes that and they have not been depending on the Lord Jesus Christ, they will be extremely deceived into thinking, I’ve got something in me that can make life work. I’ve got something in me that can be fruitful and that can make a difference in life.

John 15:5 says, I cannot do anything that is eternally fruitful apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. I can have all kinds of temporary American success if I want to pursue that. But temporary American success is a pitiful product in comparison to eternal fruitfulness.

The major application is this: can-do arrogance may lead to success, but only complete dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ leads to eternal fruitfulness. And the major question for each of us to ask is, what is my personal approach to life? Do I have a can-do arrogance about me that says, I’ll make it work? Or do I have a humble dependence about me that says, I need Jesus Christ to make me a fruitful person?

The Christian life involves a huge amount of work. I am not in any way suggesting that it doesn’t. But it is work that is dependent on the resources of Christ and not on personal arrogance and personal belief that I can make life work.

Before the 1980 Winter Olympics they had a program showing how blind skiers were competing in the downhill course. Blind skiers, skiing through the gates in the downhill course. And they showed how it was done. They took a number of skiers who did not have any sight at all who wanted to be downhill racers. They took them to a fairly gentle slope and they taught them how to turn right and left. After they had learned to turn right and left, they took them on steep slopes and they helped them learn on steep slopes how to turn right and left. Then when they were ready to make their turns, they sent them to the top of the course with all the gates stretched down below them, and they sent them down the hill and they had a skier with sight skiing right next to them. When they got to the first gate, the skier with sight would shout, Left. And the blind person would turn left and go through the gate. And then he would shout Right when it was time, and Left and Right. And this person skied the entire course. Skier after skier after skier, sking in total blackness, going through all the gates, going down to the finish line. And they were doing it, but they were completely dependent on the skier beside them who was shouting Left, Right, Left, Right.

I think that is a remarkable picture of fruitfulness in life and ministry for the Christian. It is me being so dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ that I am simply listening for Him to say, Left or Right—whichever You say, Lord, I’m going. I am going to depend on You completely and have an impact that lasts for eternity. And I will completely abandon the can-do arrogance that says, there is something in me that makes a difference for eternity.

—PRAYER—