Without Him You Can Do Nothing

John chapter 15, verse 5. We'll read one verse,

John 15:5

then we'll pray and get started. John chapter

John 15:5

15, verse 5. I am the vine, you are the branches.

The one who remains in me and I in him produces

much fruit because you can do nothing without

me. Let's pray. God, we come to you today and

we thank you for the freedom and the privilege

to be able to read your word and to sing these

songs. I pray, dear Lord, that your Holy Spirit

would be on us today, that you would free us

from All of the distractions and the thoughts

of our minds and the worries and the pains and

the sadness and the struggles and whatever it

may be, dear Lord, that's competing for our attention

right now. I pray, God, that you would block

those things out. I pray that your Holy Spirit,

dear Lord, would help us to focus on you. That

you would give us eyes to see you today and ears

to hear you today, dear Lord. That we would trust

you above all else. I pray, God, that you take

away any pride or any fear that's within me,

that every word that is said today from me, dear

Lord, is from you, and it's all for your glory.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

I was thinking about this week. I was thinking

about this question. If I were to ask everybody

in here this morning, When you leave your house

every day, what would be the one thing that you

could not leave without? The one thing that you

have to do before you leave, or the one thing

you have to take with you when you leave. What

is the one thing that you cannot leave your house

without? Now, I suspect everybody's answers would

be a little different. There were some things

that I thought of this week that... That I've

heard people say before and some that I say myself.

And I hear some people say, I can't get my day

started. I can't do anything until I've had my

cup of coffee. Has anybody ever said that before?

Maybe that's your thing. Maybe you're one thing.

You could go without everything else. You could

leave the house without doing everything else.

But you've got to have that cup of coffee. And

some people are shaking your head. You don't

drink coffee and that's okay. But maybe there's

other things for some of the rest of us. Maybe

some of you say, I cannot leave the house without

my wallet. Okay, or without my purse. Kind of

the same thing because we've got a lot of stuff

we need in our wallet and our purse. We've got

our IDs. We've got our money. We've got all kinds

of stuff in there. If you've got a purse, you've

got all kinds of stuff in there. There ain't

no telling what's in there. I'm afraid to ask.

But these are things that we say, oh, I cannot

leave without that. Maybe it's something else.

Maybe it's some technology. Specifically your

cell phone. Just out of curiosity, I want to

ask you this on all of them. Who in here this

morning brought their cell phone with them? Raise

your hand. That's just about everybody in here.

There's a few of you that left them at home.

But there's a lot of you that you could be halfway

to work. And you wouldn't even turn around and

go get your wife if you left her. But if you

leave that cell phone, you're going to turn around

and go back and get it, right? I mean, these

are some of the things that we can't leave without.

What about our glasses? It's hard to make it.

When you can't see very good, and my eyes are

getting worse and worse, when you can't see very

good, it's hard to make it through the day when

you forget your glasses. I forget my glasses

sometimes. And that can be disastrous. I'll tell

you how disastrous that can be. I went to the

co -op, this was last summer, to get some ant

poison. I had a bunch of anthills that had popped

up. And I go in the co -op, and I pick out some

ant poison, and I see some, and it's expensive.

It's like 30 bucks or something. It's real high.

It ain't like this big. It comes in a little

blue thing. And it says on this, I forgot my

glasses now, and it says on this thing, it says,

kills up to 130 miles. And I said, this is unbelievable.

I'm going to kill every, I'm killing every ant

between the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast.

Y 'all can thank me later, everybody, within

130 miles. So I get this stuff while I get home,

and I'm shaking it on there, boy. If you'd have

drove by my, it looked like just a pile of powdered

donuts everywhere out in that yard. I sprinkled

that white powder on there. And after I emptied

the whole thing, And I had my glasses, and I

could see. It did not say kills ants up to 130

miles. It says kills up to 130 heels. Ant heels.

And that ain't bad enough. I poured every bit

of it on 10. It was enough for 130 heels, and

I used the whole thing on 10 ant heels. And I

said, that's what happens when you cannot see.

What about hearing aids? Can't leave without

your hearing aids. That's a lot of stuff some

of you can leave without, but you can't leave

without your hearing aids because you get in

trouble if you ain't got your hearing aids. Can't

hear nothing. Some of you can't hear this morning

probably because you forgot your hearing aids.

Some of you need hearing aids and you ain't got

them. When your wife or your husband says you

need them, maybe you need to listen to them.

But you get in trouble if you ain't got your

hearing aids. You can't hear what people are

saying. And even worse than that, You talking

louder than you think you're talking. Let me

give you a heads up. If you forget your hearing

aids, do not whisper to somebody. Because you

ain't whispering. Because you look over there

and you say, can you believe that they did their

hair like that for church this morning? And you

think you're whispering to your spouse and you're

talking loud. These are things that we cannot

leave the house without and we should not leave

the house without. These are important things

to us. For some of you, maybe it's something

more practical, like I cannot leave without brushing

my teeth. I've got to brush my teeth or iron

my clothes, right? You don't want to leave with

wrinkles. You don't want to smell bad. You cannot

leave without taking a shower. You've got to

feel good. If you don't take a shower when you

get up, you feel dirty all day. There's a whole

list of things in our life that we cannot leave

without. For some of you, it might be a gun.

You got to have your gun with you. You're not

going to leave the house, right? You watch the

news. You see what's going on. You don't even

come to church without it because you see people

in churches getting shot up and you see so much

stuff going on. And we have all of these things

in our life that we say, I cannot leave without

these things. I cannot live without these things.

And perhaps these things say something about

us and our dependency. What are we dependent

on to make it through the day? Perhaps we can't

leave without our gun because that's our protection.

Or we can't leave without our wallet or our purse.

That's our security. That's our money. That's

what's going to get us through. We can't leave

without our cell phone. That's our connection.

That's how we're connected to other people. That's

how we talk to people and people talk to us.

We cannot leave without our stimulant, our coffee

or our tobacco or whatever it is. It helps us

to think better. And all of these things in our

life, we begin to become dependent on these things.

So much so that when we don't have them, we struggle

to make it through a day. And that's because

we're dependent upon the wrong things. That's

because we're trusting. and the wrong things.

The one thing that we should say that we can't

leave without every day is Jesus Christ. But

there are a lot of days, perhaps, that we leave

the house without ever once seeking the will

of God, without once praying that God would guide

us to make the right decisions during the day.

That God would give us the strength to deal with

the pesky co -worker or the crazy customer that's

going to come in. Whatever it may be, our dependency

should be on Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ should

be the one that we seek for protection. Jesus

Christ should be the one that we seek for security.

Jesus Christ should be the one that we're trying

to impress. Not everybody else with brushing

our teeth and making sure our clothes are ironed

and looking our best. Are we doing that for other

people? Do we seek to live our life every day

for other people and what other people would

think of us? Or do we seek to live our life for

Jesus Christ every day? Because maybe you didn't

brush your teeth this morning. Maybe you didn't

iron your clothes this morning. Maybe you didn't

take a shower this morning. Praise the Lord,

God doesn't look at those things. But what he

does look at is our heart. And what we need to

think about every day before we leave our house

is what are we going to be dependent on? Or better

yet, who are we going to be dependent on? And

Jesus tells us, In John chapter 15, verse 5,

John 15:5

he says, I am the vine, you are the branches.

Jesus says, I am the source of everything that

you need and you cannot live apart from me. And

if you are in me, Jesus says, you will produce

fruit. We have to be fruit inspectors. As Christians,

you are also a fruit inspector. You have to look

at your life and see what kind of fruit are you

producing. You're producing some fruit. There's

no question about that. The question is, is it

good fruit or is it bad fruit? Is it fruit that

needs to be thrown to the side or is it fruit

that's good enough to be presented to those that

you encounter? And Jesus says we should be attached

to him and he should be our source of life and

our source of protection and our source of security

and our source of joy and our source of everything

that we need. We know how bad it is when we forget

our glasses and we forget our hearing aids. But

how much worse when we forget our Lord? For He

is the one who gives us vision to help us see

the things that He wants us to see and gives

us ears to hear the things that He wants us to

hear. And how many times do we look to the Lord

and look to His Word? How many times do we open

our ears to hear Him? How many times spiritually

are we walking around without our spiritual glasses

on and our spiritual ears open and we're missing

what's going on around us? And Jesus says at

the end of this verse, he says, without me, you

can do nothing. So the one thing that we need

more than anything in our life is Jesus Christ.

And maybe in our addictions to our coffee and

our phones and our trust and our wealth and how

we look, maybe in the midst of all of these things,

we forget the most important thing. We leave

the house every day with our coffee in one hand

and our cell phones in another hand and we look

like we're ready to go to a beauty pageant and

we get in our car and we leave and the one thing

we forget is Jesus Christ. And we don't seek

him for a second. We don't read His Word. We

don't pray to Him. We don't listen to what His

will is. We don't say, God, show me somebody

that I can help today. God, help me to walk according

to Your Word. Let it be a lamp unto my feet and

a light unto my path. God, let Your Word and

Your Holy Spirit guide me today. We don't have

time for that because we're too busy. We've got

too much else to think about. Now, I'm not saying

any of these things that I mentioned are bad.

Don't wake up in the morning and say, I can't

have my coffee. Brother Shan preached about that

yesterday. I'm not saying that. Your coffee's

not evil and your cell phone's not evil, although

it could be like anything else. Hey, y 'all want

to know something crazy? I'm going to tell y

'all something crazy. And you'll be surprised

that we're even here today that the world didn't

end. But Friday. I decided Friday morning that

I was not going to take my cell phone with me

all day. I put it in my pocket. I mean, I took

it out of my pocket. I left the house. I woke

up. I left it sitting on the bar. You know what's

crazy? The world didn't end. I know what some

of y 'all are thinking. I couldn't do that. I

couldn't do that. And some of y 'all are thinking,

well, what if somebody would have needed you?

And I thought about that, and I said, well, that's

probably more of a justification than anything.

I'm going to just leave it at home. And you know

what? It didn't affect anybody except for my

daddy. He called me. He was the only one that

called me all day. And I got home. I had one

missed call. But that's the only person it affected.

And I made it to the end of the day. It's unbelievable,

right? Because we don't realize how often we

pick up our phone a day. You pick up your phone

way more than you realize you pick up your phone.

On average, even a light cell phone user picks

up their phone like 60 times a day. Some of you

are picking it up like 200 times a day, right?

Because we've always got to check everything.

Because we've got to check our bank account.

And we've got to see what's going on on TikTok

and Instagram and Facebook. We've got to check

all these things out. And we've got to do it,

right? We've got to do it. You just can't not

do it. You've got to do it. Because what if somebody

said something important on Facebook today? What

if somebody's selling something on Facebook Marketplace

and I didn't look at that? Or what if I got this

text message or this phone call? What if I went

a whole day? It's the craziest thing. I never

picked up my phone. I didn't miss a single thing.

Maybe there are some things in our life that

we do need to cut out. Maybe there are some things

in our life that are distractions. Maybe in the

morning when you put your phone in your pocket

or when you drink your cup of coffee or when

you grab your glasses or put your hearing aids

in or stick your gun in your pants, whatever

it may be, maybe tomorrow when you think about

these things, you'll also think about Jesus Christ

and say, Jesus, without you, I can do nothing.

And there's a lot of times in life that we might

go through a day or go through a week and it

just seems like nothing is working out. We can't

do nothing right. And the reason why may be simple.

It may be because we're trying to do it without

Jesus. And Jesus says, without me, you can do

nothing. What a beautiful song. Some of you have

heard the song. Without him, it's based on this

verse. Without him, I could do nothing. Without

him, I'd surely fail. Without him, I'd be drifting

like a ship without a sail. What a beautiful,

beautiful song. What a beautiful, beautiful truth.

There are some of you today that are so dependent

on your stuff and so dependent on what happens

around you to the things you like or the things

you're into that when those things crumble, you

can't do anything. But if you place your dependency

on Jesus Christ, You can do all things through

Christ who strengthens you. Some of us are like

that. There's a story in Luke chapter 10. You

Luke 10 · chapter mention

can go read it. It's a great story. A real short

little story about a couple of sisters, Mary

and Martha, and Jesus is coming to visit. And,

boy, it's a big deal. Of course, they're friends

with Jesus. He comes in, and Jesus shows up onto

the scene, and Mary just sitting down at his

feet just listening to everything that Jesus

is saying. And Martha, she comes in there, and

she says, Look, we're trying to get everything

together. We got guests here. Jesus, you need

to tell Mary she needs to get up and help me

do some of this work around this house. And Jesus

said, Martha, Martha, you are distracted by many

things. But Mary, Mary knew what mattered. Mary

knew what was important. All the noise and all

of the distractions around her, Mary knew that

being in the presence of Jesus Christ mattered

more than anything else. Perhaps our... prayer

each day needs to be that of Moses. In Moses

chapter 33, verse 15, God had told Moses to lead

the people to go toward the promised land, to

get on their way. And Moses says to God, God,

if your presence is not going with me, I will

not go. God, if you don't go with me, I cannot

go. God, I cannot do this. I cannot make it through

this day. I cannot serve you in this way you've

called. God, if you do not go with me, I will

not go. But it's maybe more days than we'd like

to admit that we leave God at home and we don't

think twice. We go out about our day trying to

do it on our own and never once. Call on God.

Never once seek God. Never once allow God to

lead us. Maybe our prayer tomorrow needs to be,

God, I got another day ahead of me. And God,

if you do not go with me, I cannot make it. So

Lord, I ask that you would be with me today.

Because without you, I can do nothing. So what

are you depending on? today? What are you depending

on for a good day, for a good week? You know

something silly? I'll tell y 'all. This is silly.

Y 'all can tell me how bad I am when I tell you

this, but I like football, in particular NFL

football. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan, if you

didn't know that. My whole life, I watched the

Eagles, and we never had won a Super Bowl until

2017. And I always thought to myself, I thought,

boy, if we could just get one, just one Super

Bowl, I would be so happy for the rest of my

life. And then we won that Super Bowl, and in

the last eight years, we've been to three Super

Bowls, and we won two of them, and we should

have won the third Super Bowl, and you would

think that I'd be happy because I said if I ever

won a Super Bowl on my team, I'd be happy. But

y 'all don't, please don't come to my house on

a Sunday afternoon. When the Eagles are playing.

Or y 'all will fire me from being the pastor

of this church. Because no matter how much they

win, I get so angry. And here's the, I said all

that to say this. When the Eagles lose, the whole

next week for me is horrible. It is just horrible.

Like I'll wake up in the night like just mad

about a play. Like I'm telling you. Like my whole

week will be ruined. Because my team lost. I

kid you not, for the year that we lost that Super

Bowl, I woke up for like a year straight after

that having nightmares about that Super Bowl.

I'd wake up angry every morning. And that's not

good. We laugh, but that's not good. My weak

and my attitude should not be dependent on whether

my football team wins or not. My weak and my

attitude should be dependent on whether Jesus

Christ is the Lord of my life. And so even if

the Eagles lose, Tomorrow night's when they play

if y 'all want to watch them. Even if they lose,

it shouldn't ruin my week. And maybe you guys

have some things like that too. Some things that

come up, some real simple, silly things that

come up at home or with your ball teams, and

you start the day off and the least little thing

happens, it just ruins your day. It just ruins

your week. And maybe these things ruin our week

and ruin our lives because we're too dependent

on these things and not dependent on Jesus Christ.

Without Him, we can do nothing. Jesus Christ

needs to be our security today. Jesus Christ

needs to be our protection today. The Holy Spirit

needs to... Open our eyes to see the will of

God and the word of God and our ears to hear

the word of God and to do the word of God. If

you've been trying to make it through this life

without him, you can do nothing. And you know

that yourself. If you've been trying to make

it through your life today without Jesus Christ,

you are like a ship without a sail and you are

being tossed wherever the waves of life will

toss you. into the storms of life, into the rocky

cliffs, into whatever is around. That's what

you'll be tossed into. But with Jesus Christ,

he'll be like a sail on a boat. He'll guide you

where you need to go. He'll take you to a place

of safety. With Jesus today, you can make it.

If your dependency is on Jesus Christ and his...

crucifixion and resurrection and his sacrifice

for you, if you know today that he loves you

and that he wants to forgive your sins, if you

would just trust him and put your faith in him

today, with Jesus you can do all things. But

Jesus tells us in this verse that without him

you can do nothing. Let's pray. God, we come

to you today and we thank you for these words.

God, maybe there are some of us today that are

doing pretty good. Maybe we start every day out

trusting you and seeking you first and foremost,

and that's a great thing, dear Lord. Maybe there

are some that do that, and I praise you for that.

Maybe there are others that don't, God. Maybe

there are some of us that when we get up and

we start our day and we really don't think twice

about you, not only when we start today, but

when we go through the day, dear Lord. We become

so dependent on these other things that we think

we can't live without, dear Lord. I pray, God,

that you would open our eyes to see that the

only thing that we cannot live without is Jesus

Christ. So I pray, dear Lord, that we would not

put too much trust in the things of this world.

That our joy would not be dependent on our ball

teams and on our bank accounts. Anything else,

dear Lord, there's a whole list of things. God,

you know what's in our heart. And honestly, we

probably do too. You already convicted us of

the things that we know shouldn't be there. And

so, God, I pray that if there are some today

that have been trying to live without you, without

Jesus Christ, that today that they would repent

of their sinfulness. That they would know the

truth of the words of Jesus today. That without

Him, they can do nothing, dear Lord. Without

Him, we're doomed to die in our sin. But with

Jesus Christ, our sin can be forgiven. So God,

I pray that if there's anybody that doesn't know

Jesus Christ, that now that they would ask for

forgiveness of their sins. That they would ask

Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. That they

would trust Him this morning. God, maybe there

are some today that are yours and they know Jesus

Christ, but maybe we've just gotten caught into

the trap, the trap of being too dependent on

the things of the world, trusting in them, trying

to find joy in them, and I pray, God, that you

would help us to lay some of these things aside,

that you would help us to find our joy in Jesus

Christ because there is no other source. And

I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.