I Got This

OPENING: THE IMPRESSIVE BRANCH

I want you to imagine a man with a beautiful tree in his backyard.

He loves this tree. He faithfully cares for the soil. He waters it. He protects it. Year after year it grows and produces fruit.

And one year he notices a particular branch. It stands out from all the others. It looks strong. The leaves are healthy. Fruit is growing all over it. He starts pointing it out to people.

“Look at this branch. Look how strong it is. Look at all that fruit.”

Eventually, he becomes so impressed with that branch that he decides it deserves a place of honor.

[PAUSE]

So he cuts it off the tree.

He brings it inside. Sets it on the mantle. Puts it where everyone can see it. And for a little while, it still looks impressive.

It still has leaves. It still has fruit hanging from it. From across the room, it looks alive.

But then the leaves begin to curl. The fruit shrivels. The branch dries out.

[LOOK UP]

What went wrong with the branch?

[PAUSE. LET THEM ANSWER IT IN THEIR HEADS.]

We know the answer. The branch was never impressive by itself. Everything we admired about the branch came from the tree.

Its strength  Its growth. Its fruit came from the tree. Its very life came from the tree.

The branch was never impressive by itself.

READ NKJV: John 15:1–5

STEP AWAY FROM THE PODIUM  |  TESTIMONY

MY STORY: WHEN THE BRANCH STARTS ADMIRING ITSELF

If I am honest, I have spent parts of my Christian life admiring the branch.

There was a time when I was not following Christ. He was far from being Lord of my life. Then Jesus saved me and changed everything.

I was done living the old way. I started seeking out God’s people. I met preachers. I took steps of faith. I switched jobs on faith. I became a religious liberty lawyer. God put influential Christians in my life. He put me in rooms I never expected to be in. He gave me opportunities to speak to large groups. I served on Christian nonprofit boards. I even had people call me a hero for standing up to schools and employers on behalf of Christians.

[PAUSE]

Pretty impressive branch, right?

[PAUSE]

But that version of the story is misleading.

The journey did not start with me making great plans for my Christian life. It started with surrender and Following where God led.

God led me. opened doors. gave wisdom. gave strength. God changed me. Whatever good fruit came out of my life came because He was giving life to the branch.

We ask for strength, for wisdom, and He gives it. We ask for experience, and He lets us grow. We become more effective. confident. And capable.

And somewhere along the way, the very growth God gave me can start making me feel less dependent on the God who gave it.

God can grow the branch, and eventually the branch starts admiring itself. 

What began as, “God, wherever You lead, I will follow,” can quietly become, “I know what I’m doing now.”

[PAUSE]

I got this.

RETURN TO THE PODIUM  |  LET JESUS TELL US WHAT WE ARE

SCREEN NKJV: John 15:5
JOHN 15: JESUS TELLS ME WHAT I AM

Jesus says He is the true Vine. The Father is the Gardener. Then He tells us what we are: branches.

And when Jesus says abide, He is saying remain. Stay. Keep receiving your life from Me.

Jesus is the Vine. I am the branch.

I was the branch when I first believed. I was the branch when I did not know what I was doing. I was the branch when doors started opening. I was the branch when people started listening. I am the branch when life is falling apart. And I am still the branch when everything is going well.

I never graduate into being the Vine.

Then Jesus says the line that destroys the “I got this” mentality: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”

Not less. Not harder. Nothing.

That confronts me, but it also comforts me. Jesus is not asking me to become the source of life. He is offering to be the source of life.

A disconnected branch does not need better motivation. It does not need somebody yelling, “Try harder.” It needs life.

I don’t need to be an impressive branch. I need to be an abiding branch.

The strength was never in the branch. The strength was always in the Vine.

ABIDING SOUNDS SIMPLE. SO HOW DO WE DRIFT?

That sounds simple: remain in Jesus. Keep receiving your life from Him. Stay close to Him. Read your Bible. Pray. Gather with His people.

But if remaining were automatic, Jesus would not keep telling His disciples to remain. The danger is usually not that I wake up one morning and reject the Vine. It is a slow shift in what I am depending on.

Remember the branch on the mantle. A branch can still look alive for a while after it has been cut off. It can still have leaves. It can still have fruit hanging on it. From across the room, it can look healthy.

Spiritually, that is what scares me.

I can still know the language. Serve. lead. Still have old fruit hanging there.

I can mistake yesterday’s fruit for today’s dependence.

And the drift can happen through good things. God actually answers prayer. He teaches and gives me wisdom. He gives me experience  making me better at what I do.

Then what once required prayer starts to feel automatic. What once made me cry out to God starts to feel manageable. I stop asking because I have done this before.

I start trusting the pattern instead of the Person.

Our strength can become a hurdle to our dependence. A strength becomes dangerous when I start using it instead of depending on Jesus.

 self-reliance can grow out of answered prayer. God gives the gift, I grow in the gift, and then I start acting like the gift is the source.

That is how “God’s got this” quietly becomes “I got this.”

DAVID: YESTERDAY’S DEPENDENCE IS NOT ENOUGH

Maybe somebody hears this and thinks, “I have been through too much with God for that to happen to me. I have needed Him too much. I have suffered too much. I have seen Him come through too many times. I know where my help comes from.”

Then let me tell you about David.

If anybody could have said, “I know where my strength comes from,” it was David. He had been overlooked. He had learned to depend on God in the fields. He would be hunted by Saul. He would spend years waiting. David had history with God.

Yesterday’s dependence does not guarantee today’s dependence.

DAVID THE SHEPHERD: GOD’S GOT THIS

READ NKJV: 1 Samuel 17:45–47

When David arrives at the battlefield, he does not show up as Israel’s champion. He shows up carrying food.

Saul sees what David lacks. Israel sees Goliath and feels fear. David sees God.

Everybody else compares David to Goliath. David compares Goliath to God.

That changes everything.

David does not walk out there saying, “I got this.” He says, in effect, “God’s got this.” The battle is the Lord’s.

David is not impressive because David is enough. David is courageous because he knows who God is.

And notice what David’s weakness does in that moment: it keeps the source of victory clear. He cannot look at himself and say, “I am enough.” His need keeps his eyes on God.

WEAKNESS CAN PROTECT DEPENDENCE

READ NKJV: 2 Corinthians 12:9–10

Paul says that Christ’s power is made perfect in weakness. We usually spend a lot of energy trying not to look weak. But weakness can do something strength sometimes does not. Weakness reminds me that I need God.

STEP AWAY FROM THE PODIUM  |  PERSONAL CONFESSION ABOUT STRENGTH

I like being capable. I like plans. I like discipline. I like knowing what to do. None of those things are bad.

But I can start treating competence like dependence is optional.

There are places where I cannot fix it. I cannot control every outcome. I cannot change another person’s heart. I cannot manufacture peace. I cannot sanctify myself.

And when I finally say, “I cannot do this,” that is not always failure. Sometimes that is the moment I stop pretending I am the Vine.

Discipline matters, but discipline makes a terrible Savior.

A disconnected branch does not need motivation. It needs life.

But now ask the opposite question. What happens when the person who learned dependence in weakness becomes strong enough to stop feeling weak?

RETURN TO THE PODIUM  |  DAVID BECOMES KING

DAVID THE KING: WHEN COMFORT CHANGES THE DANGER

READ NKJV: 2 Samuel 11:1–5

The shepherd becomes a warrior. The warrior becomes famous. The warrior becomes king.

Now David has power. Authority. An army. Generals. People who can fight for him. A palace. Security. Comfort.

And 2 Samuel 11 opens with this detail: “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war… David remained in Jerusalem.”

I want to be careful. The text does not say David’s sin was simply that he stayed home. I do not want to make the Bible say more than it says.

But the contrast is worth noticing. The young David had to trust God for the battle. King David could send somebody else to fight it.

STEP AWAY FROM THE PODIUM  |  SUCCESS / COMFORT / DRIFT

And sometimes comfort creates room for things desperation never did.

While the army is away, David sees Bathsheba. Lust becomes abuse of power. And eventually murder.

What gets me is not merely that David sinned. It is who sinned.

This is David. The man who knew God. The man who wrote songs to God. The man who had been hunted. The man who had watched God preserve him again and again. The man who once said, “The battle is the Lord’s.”

David had history with God, and he still needed to abide today.

That is sobering to me. Sometimes success is a greater spiritual danger than crisis. Sometimes comfort is. Sometimes getting good at life is.

 The fs going well. Factory. Family. And faith. People trust me. I know what to do.

And quietly, prayer moves to the edges. Dependence gets quieter. I can still look fruitful while love and dependence are getting colder.

You do not have to wake up one morning and decide, “Today I am going to drift.” You just stop paying attention.

David could manage appearances for a while, but he could not undo what he had done and he could not repair his own heart. When God brings him to repentance, listen to the way he prays.

RETURN TO THE PODIUM  |  DAVID BROKEN BEFORE GOD

DAVID BROKEN: GOD, DO WHAT I CANNOT DO

READ NKJV: Psalm 51:10–12

Psalm 51 comes out of David’s failure with Bathsheba. And listen to the verbs David uses.

[PAUSE]

Create. Renew. Restore. Sustain.

David finally realizes the problem is deeper than one bad decision. He has wandered from dependence. He cannot repair his own heart by force.

He is not saying, “I have a better system now.” He is not saying, “I will fix myself.” He is saying, “God, I need You to do in me what I cannot do for myself.”

Christian maturity is not increasing independence from God. It is increasing awareness of how desperately I need God.

Shepherd David needed God. Warrior David needed God. King David needed God. Broken David needed God.

David never stopped being the branch.

But John 15 is not only about what happens when dependence fades. Jesus also shows us what His life looks like when it is actually flowing through the branch.

ABIDING IS NOT JUST DOING THINGS FOR JESUS

READ NKJV: John 15:9–12 and John 13:34

John 15 does not stop at dependence. Jesus moves from “remain in Me” to “remain in My love” to “love each other as I have loved you.”

That means abiding is not just about doing things for Jesus. It is about what is coming out of us because we are connected to Him.

Is His love flowing through us? Is the actual fruit showing up?

Doing for God can become more important than loving like God.

And that is dangerous because Jesus did not call us merely to Christian activity. He called us to remain in His love and then love one another as He loved us.

True abiding is vertical. I remain in Christ. But it becomes horizontal. His life flows through me toward the other branches.

If I say I am connected to the Vine but I cannot love the branches growing next to me, something is wrong.

That is why love is not an optional extra attached to an otherwise successful Christian life. It is part of the fruit.

—-Think about what Jesus has already told us.

“Apart from Me you can do nothing.”

And now He tells us to remain in His love and to love one another.

Paul says something that sounds almost exactly like it.

AN IMPRESSIVE BRANCH CAN STILL BE NOTHING BUT NOISE

READ NKJV: 1 Corinthians 13:1–3

I can speak incredibly.

I can have knowledge.

I can have faith that moves mountains.

I can sacrifice everything.

But if I do not have love…

I am nothing.

Do you see the connection?

Nothing without Jesus.

And all this impressive Christian activity, without love, still amounts to nothing.

Because the life of the Vine produces the love of the Vine.

If I am abiding in Jesus, eventually His life should become visible in the way I love the branches around me.

I can look like an impressive branch and still make nothing but noise if love is missing.

The question is not only, “What am I doing for Jesus?” The question is, “What kind of fruit is His life producing in me?”

Am I becoming more loving? More patient? More forgiving? More gentle? More faithful? More like Christ?

THE WARNING: LIFE IS IN THE VINE

READ NKJV: John 15:6

Then Jesus says something we should not soften. The branch that does not remain is thrown away. It withers. It is gathered and burned.

[SLOW DOWN. DO NOT RAISE YOUR VOICE.]

Jesus said that. Not me.

I do not think this is the place to stop and turn the sermon into a debate about every theological question around salvation and perseverance. Jesus is giving us a warning, and the warning is clear.

Life is in the Vine.

Apart from Him, we are not merely less effective. We are dying.

A disconnected branch does not need motivation. It needs life.

If God is showing you pride, repent today. If you have drifted, return today. If you have been living on yesterday’s fruit, come back today.

If life is only in the Vine, then the answer cannot be “try harder.” The question becomes: where does the life we need come from?

THE GOSPEL: JESUS OFFERS THE LIFE WE CANNOT MANUFACTURE

READ NKJV: John 14:6

And this is where the warning becomes hope.

Jesus never asks us to manufacture the life.

He offers it.

He understands our need. Sin separated us from God. We could not fix that separation. So Jesus came. He lived. He died for our sin. He took judgment. He rose again.

He knew our need, and He made a way.

Jesus is not merely the teacher of life. Jesus is the life.

The answer is not, “Become a better branch.”

Come to the Vine.

And if you have never surrendered your life to Jesus, abiding does not begin with trying to act like a Christian. It begins by coming to Christ.

The hope is not a stronger branch. The hope is a sufficient Vine.

WHAT ABIDING LOOKS LIKE ON MONDAY MORNING

And if Christ is the life, then the next question is practical: how do I keep abiding when there is no crisis, no stage, and no big spiritual moment?

Paul gives us the pattern.

READ NKJV: Colossians 2:6–7

Paul says that just as we received Christ Jesus as Lord, we continue in Him.

We do not get life from the Vine and then mature by depending on Him less.

We mature by learning to depend on Him more.

So Monday morning abiding looks ordinary: praying, opening the Word, obeying what He already showed me, repenting quickly, forgiving, gathering with His people, serving, worshiping, and recentering myself in the love of Christ.

Sometimes it starts with a sentence that simple: “Jesus, I need You today.”

Marathon training is a little like that. One run weeks ago will not carry me. You keep showing up day after day.

But even that analogy breaks down, because a marathon eventually has a finish line.

There is no finish line where the branch says, “Thanks, Vine. I’ll take it from here.”

The branch never graduates into being the Vine.

And daily dependence includes surrender. It is one thing to say, “Jesus, I need You.” It is another to trust Him when He shows me something I need to let go of. That brings us back to something Jesus said at the beginning of John 15.

PRUNING: I WANT THE VINE WITHOUT THE CUTTING

READ NKJV: John 15:2, 9

Jesus says the Father is the Gardener, and the Father prunes the branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit.

Now remember the branch from the opening story. That man cut it off and separated it from its source of life. Pruning is different. The Father tends a branch that is bearing fruit so it will bear more. He is caring for its growth, not disconnecting it from the Vine.

And that is where I struggle. I want the Vine. I want the life of Jesus. I want fruit. I want blessing. I want growth.

I just do not want the pruning.

My flesh wants the life of the Vine without the pruning of the Gardener.

Because I usually think I know what needs to stay. I think I know what I need to keep. My plans. My habits. My comfort. My identity. My commitments. My control.

But abiding says, “Father, if You are cutting it, I trust Your hand.”

And later in this same passage, Jesus tells us to remain in His love. I need to hear those words alongside what He says about pruning. I can trust the Father’s care without understanding everything He is doing.

That does not mean I can look at every painful thing and confidently tell you exactly what God is cutting away. But when His Word exposes pride, an unhealthy habit, or my need to control everything, abiding means I do not argue for the right to keep it. I surrender it to Him.

That matters. The Gardener is not trying to destroy the branch. The pruning comes from the hand of a good Father.

Abiding is not merely staying connected to God’s power. It is remaining in Christ’s love.

And some of what needs to go is the pride that makes me compete with other people. The need to be noticed. The need to be the impressive branch. As I remain in Christ’s love, I learn to celebrate what He is doing in the branches beside me.

BRANCHES, NOT BRANCH

Because abiding is not only personal. Jesus says, “You are the branches.” Plural.

Not branch. Branches.

But the same Vine.

If we remain in Christ, we love as He loved. Another branch producing fruit should not threaten me. Their growth is not competition. Their gifting is not a problem.

Their fruit glorifies the same Father.

If they flourish, the whole tree becomes more beautiful.

The goal was never for my branch to stand out. The goal is for the Father to be glorified.

And Jesus does not merely command that kind of love. In John 17, He prays for what that love produces: a people becoming one.

JOHN 17: THE WHOLE TREE BECOMES THE WITNESS

READ NKJV: John 17:20–23

Jesus prays that His people would be one. And He connects that unity to the watching world. “Then the world will know that You sent Me.”

Think about what that looks like.

A church that forgives. A church that supports one another. A church that loves across differences. A church that stays when the world expects people to walk away. A church where another person’s fruit is celebrated instead of competed with.

And the outside world looks at that and asks, “How do they do that?”

Our answer is not, “Look how impressive these branches are.”

Look at the Vine.

The whole tree becomes the witness.

FINAL WALK  |  STEP AWAY FROM THE PODIUM AND STAY AWAY

THE BEAUTIFUL TREE

I want you to picture the tree again.

But this time, do not picture one branch cut off and sitting on a mantle.

Picture the whole tree alive.

Different races. Different backgrounds. Different social classes. Different abilities. Different stories. Different branches.

But all drawing life from the same Vine.

Loving one another. Supporting one another. Forgiving one another. Serving one another. Not competing for attention.

And the beauty is not that one branch stands out. The beauty is that the whole tree is alive.

BRING IT BACK TO ME

I can spend my whole life doing things for God and still let my love grow cold.

Doing for God can become more important than loving like God.

I can keep the activity while losing the dependence. I can keep the language while losing the love.

But I will never graduate into being the Vine. I will always be a branch.

And I do not want to spend the rest of my life building an impressive branch.

I want to be part of a beautiful tree.

God is glorified when His branches remain in Christ, receive His life, and let that life flow into one another.

Abiding looks like a living church.

LET THE QUESTIONS SIT

So let me ask myself, and let me ask you:

Where am I looking for my strength?

What am I refusing to surrender?

Have I let the practice become more important than the Person?

Has my pride kept me holding onto commitments, habits, identities, or comforts that God may be asking me to release?

Has my love grown cold while my activity stayed high?

Am I choosing comfort over dependence?

[LONG PAUSE]

Am I still abiding?

FINAL REFRAIN: ABIDE

When you are worried, abide.

When you are stressed, abide.

When things are going bad, abide.

When things are going good, abide.

When you feel weak, abide.

When the pruning hurts, trust the Gardener and abide.

And maybe most importantly, when you feel strong, abide.

No matter where you are in the journey, you are still the branch. He is still the Vine.

FINAL 60 SECONDS

God gives more abundantly than we can imagine. He is a good Father.

And sometimes the very gifts He gives us can make us feel like we need Him less.

We may think, “I would never drift.” But Jesus warns us because He knows us.

Abiding is daily. It is remembering where the life came from. Remembering where the strength came from. Remaining in His love. Loving one another.

It is becoming not an impressive branch, but part of a fruitful, living tree.

I don’t need to be an impressive branch. I need to be an abiding branch.

The strength was never in the branch.

The strength was always in the Vine.

So remain in Christ.

Remain in His love.

Love one another.

Become one.

And when the world looks at this tree, may they not be impressed with the branches.

[PAUSE]

May they see the Vine.

Jesus