24 October 1999

CAPTAIN ALISTAIR VENTER

Reading: JOHN 15:1-17

INTRODUCTION:

There is a very striking verse in Luke 2:52 that simply says: "Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men." If you look at that verse a little closer, you will discover that Jesus’ growth was perfectly balanced. He grew in wisdom – mentally; he grew in stature – physically; he grew in favour with God – spiritually; and lastly he grew in favour with men – socially. Those four components of growth – mental, physical, spiritual and social – represent the whole man or the whole woman. When we are told to grow and become mature Christians – it is kind of in all these areas that we need to grow, Maybe some of us don’t need to grow physically anymore – but we are seriously lacking in the other three areas.

I want to tell you that the only way in which we will be able to grow as Christians is if we start becoming more dependent on God and less dependent on our own intellect and resources. You and I are called disciples – followers of Jesus. And I firmly believe that if you are a disciple, that with that privilege comes the responsibility to be disciplined in what we say and do. Our Christianity, our profession has got to be linked to our lifestyle – or else why bother to call yourself a Christian? If we look at the little chart on the overhead, you will see that there are various disciplines that we have to carry out as part of our everyday living. The outside rim represents our life as a whole – spiritual, mental, social and physical. Within the realm of our lives come the disciplines that kind of form the spokes of the wheel in a sense. There are the disciplines of prayer and worship, of solitude and meditation, of study and our thoughts, reading and resting, diet and exercise, friends and work, marriage and parenting, fellowship and support. All of us want to be good at these things, don’t we?

But if you look at the wheel that is on the overhead, you will notice that there is no centre – there is no hub. That is the cause of so many of our problems as Christians. We try to do everything in our own strength. We try to be Christians by saying: "I know the Bible says this about relationships, or this about my worship, and it tells me how I need to bring my children up in a certain way, and I am really doing my best". Doing your best, trying to measure up to the standards that God sets on your own results in dismal failure. When you don’t succeed, you say: "Well, I’ll try a little harder". Even although you try harder, you still fail. When you fail to come up to God’s standards, you start to feel guilty. You condemn yourself. You feel totally defeated, and we are driven to burnout and disallusionment. We just can’t do it – and at this point many "Christians" who have the greatest desire to try to live the Christian life, move away from the faith.

WHERE DOES CHANGED BEHAVIOUR BEGIN?

Changed behaviour begins when we put Christ in the centre of our disciples, when we put Christ in the centre of our lives. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But it is a fact. If you look at Paul’s letters, it is always in the latter half that he writes about all the practical things of living. In the second half of Romans we find Paul addressing how we must present ourselves to God as living sacrifices, how we need to love, how we need to be submissive to the authorities, how we need to be practical in helping those who are weak and so on. In Ephesians, it is only in the second half that we find Paul addressing issues like unity within the body, about living as children of light. He addresses issues about marriage, children, slaves and masters… We could go through all Paul’s writing in the same way. But what does he say in the first half? He talks about the need for us to be connected to Christ. To be in Christ. Before people can change, before people can start to bear fruit, they have to establish this right relationship with Christ. Hence we see a revised wheel on the overhead – where our every activity, our every discipline is connected to Christ. Don’t ever try to sort out your problems without bringing Christ into the equation. There are hundreds and thousands of books on the market telling us how to do this and do that and improve this relationship and that – but if we are doing without Christ, we are going to fail! Let us look at this idea of

ABIDING IN CHRIST:

Progress in the Christian life is attained by living in union with Christ through faith. Listen to some of the ways in which Paul describes this relationship:

It is clear from these verses that all our life, strength and all our activities as believers are to be related to Christ. They have to be connected to the hub. They flow out of our union with Christ.

CONCLUSION:

I want you to notice one last thing this morning. We will never bear good fruit on our own. It is Christ who enables us to bear fruit as we receive the nourishment from him. We will never be able to have an outward change of behaviour by striving to live a good, holy life unless we have every activity connected to Christ. Unless your love for the Lord is what it should be, you will battle all your life to be obedient to Him.

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. He wants your growth to be along the same lines. I believe that His secret – if it is a secret – is that His relationship with His Father was an abiding one – one that remained, one that continued. And every other activity of life fell into place because He received all he needed from that abiding, and was able to be obedient to the end. Trust and obey – there is no other way!