We Are All Dependents

For anyone familiar with the US tax system - no, we are not talking about filing taxes. That's not the kind of "dependent" we're talking about today.

    My dad is an extremely hard worker. His work ethic is exemplary (particularly within the church). Having grown up in the church, I saw him plug in all over the place - setting up for events, shoveling snow, working the car wash - whatever needed to get done he was there to help. As I grew up, I slowly took on his work ethic for myself, too. But there was a dark side to it that I also took on - my dad hated asking for help. He was always willing to help others, but never willing to receive help himself.

    When we see someone working on something, our first instinct is to step in help them get it done. However, if someone came up to me and asked if I needed help, my immediate answer is almost always "no". Technically, its an honest answer. Do I need help most of the time? No. I am capable of completing most tasks on my own, and I like it that way. But even if I don't need help, I could certainly benefit from it. Whatever I am doing, I can probably do it faster and better with help that on my own.

    So why wouldn't I want help? Well, I think it comes down to the fact that we live in such an individualistic society. American culture pushes the idea of being self-sufficient, independent, and doing things on your own. We see it all the time in TV shows, where one of the characters will have this really hard thing to do, and they'll be like, "This is something I have to do on my own". EVEN THOUGH it would go way better and be much easier if they accepted the help of their friends or family.

    We did a little game during youth group where one of the students had to take plastic balls from one bucket and run them, one by one, across the room to another bucket. The goal was to see how many he could run across in 30 seconds. He was pretty fast, and managed to get 7.

    So then we added 5 more people, and they formed a line and passed the balls down the line into the other bucket. As you can imagine, they were able to get a lot more working together than he could by himself. I believe they reached 18.

    But then I added one more challenge to the game. Or rather, took something away. I took away the bucket that had the balls in it. Guess how many they were able to get across without that bucket? 0. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Without access to the bucket, they couldn't do anything, even when working together.

Our message focuses on one verse:

John 15:5 - "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."

    This is Jesus speaking to His disciples about the life and work He has called them to. When we put our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive new life from Him, and with that new life comes a whole mission to make disciples of every nation all over the world. We are called to live for Him, according to His Word and teaching, and to share the good news about salvation through Him to everyone we meet.

    In this verse He gives both an encouragement and a warning to those who have put their faith in Him. The encouragement is that when we stay connected to Him, He will empower us for ministry. He will give us the energy we need to "bear much fruit" and live the life He has called us to. He will work through us to spread salvation to our friends and family. This is wonderful news!

    But the warning is that when we are disconnected from Him, our efforts will be fruitless. We cannot live the life or do the work He has called us to without being directly and consistently connected to Him. We won't be able to live according to His Word, we won't be able to obey His teachings, and we won't be effective in bringing the good news to others when we are disconnected from Jesus.

    Jesus is the bucket from that game earlier. When we have Him in our lives, we can do some great work for God's Kingdom. When we have Him and other believers working alongside us, we can accomplish even more amazing things! But when He is not there, when we are disconnected from Him, we cannot do nothing.

    As I mentioned before, our culture pushes this idea that we have to be self-sufficient, that we have to be independent. But when we put our faith in Jesus, we are already acknowledging that we are not self-sufficient. Jesus is the only way to salvation - we cannot obtain salvation without Him. We already depend on Him for salvation, so why stop there?

    Our culture tells us that dependency is a weakness, that we are weak if we need to rely on someone else. But Jesus says that's ok. Because we absolutely have to depend on Him. And He says that unless we depend wholly on Him, we cannot live the life He has given us.

    So, if you want to live for God, if you want to serve Him, if you want to please Him, and receive the joy, peace, and love that His life offers, you have to keep going back to Him.

How do we connect to God?

By spending time reading His Word.

By spending time praying to Him.

By spending time worshiping His name and His mighty works.

By spending time with other believers.

    Ask yourself this: how often do you do those things? How often do you read the Bible per week? How often do you pray each week? How often do you worship God? And how often do you spend time with other Christians?

Once you have answer for those questions, consider this: How connected do you feel to God?

    Let me reassure you, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are saved. God is with you wherever you go and He will never leave nor forsake you. But the question is meant to assess how connected you feel. Because I am willing to bet that if you don't spend much time in the Word, in prayer, in worship or with other believers, you probably don't feel very connected with God.

    And this isn't some kind of a recipe for connectedness, as though you can do these things and always see an immediate result. But these are the practices of those who are actively seeking to be near to God. He has revealed Himself in His Word, He communes with us in prayer, He transforms our hearts when we worship, and He encourages us through fellowship with other believers.

    If you want to be connected with God and be effective in the work of His Kingdom, these are solid practices to help get you there. These teach us to depend on God, because after all, we are all dependents.