A Word in Season: Nothing without Christ (John 15:5)

One of the abiding follies of too many of us who are Christians is the working assumption that we can pursue spiritual duties in our own strength and be fruitful working according to our own wisdom. To be honest, that is the instinct of every fallen heart and so often it shows itself before we even come to Jesus Christ, because when we see more of God in his holy majesty, more of our own sinful misery, when we understand that it is salvation that we need, we look to ourselves.

We seem to imagine that we can make ourselves clean and make ourselves righteous, that by our own reformings and repentings, by our own good efforts and increasing attainments, by our religious performances perhaps, we can approach God, and we need to learn that it is only cleansed in Christ's blood and clothed in Christ's righteousness that we can be acceptable to a holy God and received readily by him.

Trying to Grow in the Flesh Instead of the Spirit

And the tragedy is that too often we don't understand that well enough to learn the lessons in our Christian life. We can be a bit like the Galatians who, having begun in the spirit, thought they would make progress in the flesh.

And so it is that when it comes to overcoming sin or performing spiritual service, we're relying upon ourselves. That can be quite obvious and blunt. The preacher who imagines that by his own eloquence and force of character, he can carry the congregation with him.

The eldership who assume that in order to be assured of the viability and stability of the church for this and coming generations, they need to buy into the spirit of the age and pander to the appetites of men and women who don't truly know the God of salvation.

It might be the parent who thinks that by force of authority they can drag their child into the kingdom of God. It might be the evangelist who thinks that his wit and experience and winsome personality will somehow be persuasive in bringing somebody to Christ Jesus.

It might be the strategies that we come up with and the tools with which we equip ourselves in order to battle sin and overcome it in our own hearts, as if a particular app will help us to be a praying Christian, or some particular software will overcome the tendencies to anger or lust in our hearts.

It doesn't need to be that extreme. Too often it's not the outright reliance on self, but the mixing in of self. And my point is not that we should stop trying to work. My point is that we should not work in our own strength, but rather relying upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Abiding in Christ According to John 15:5

For he himself said in John 15 and verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. And that last phrase is so easy to say and so hard to grasp, so hard really to learn, and so hard to live in the light of it.

Because we do try and do what we can, and we do it apart from Christ. We forget that it is only as we abide in him, as we live close to him and enjoy the influence of his spirit and rely upon the strength that he gives to accomplish our spiritual service.

How will we overcome sin in our own souls unless we are abiding in him? For without him we can do nothing. How will we serve the Lord in his church in our generation unless we abide in him? For without him we can do nothing.

How will we win souls for our saviour unless we abide in him? For without him we can do nothing. How will we call our children to Christ? How will we advance the cause of God's kingdom? How will we exalt our saviour?

How will we become more holy? How will we bear any fruit? Christ promises us here that by abiding in him we will bear much fruit, but without him we can do nothing. And so we need to be profoundly conscious of this, that when we set out to do what God calls us to do, when we seek to be what God calls us to be, it cannot be independence on our own strength and our own wisdom.

We work, yes, but we work independence upon him, resting upon the finished work of Christ and his continued operations in us by his spirit, that we might both be and do all that he calls us to be and to do.