In order to successfully navigate into the more and the new of God we must stay connected to Christ.
New Life Christian Ministries Podcasts
Abiding in the Vine: The Key to the New and More of God
There are some times I need a lot. Some of us, especially myself, need a lot of green lighting. Now just before we get started this morning I want to say a special thank you to not just the worship team but the media team and those around. If you don't know we've been sitting up here and then tearing down because there's weddings in the building then it can be a little chaotic at the morning. Sometimes when we take things apart I'm not good at remembering where they were so some people are smarter than me and they got pieces of paper and stuff now because they know Jim's probably just coming home and plucked up and have no clue where it goes so I am super appreciative to all you guys can we give them another hand and do it in an environment that we're not necessarily familiar with so God bless you guys thank you so much for your sacrifice and your time. So God I just thank you for today thank you for who you are thank you for your presence God that we can tangibly feel in this place right now God I thank you for that experience that we can feel the living God when you're in the room so God I thank you for that but I thank you for what you're doing in the midst of us right now and I just pray for each individual God as you move us into new and more God that we have the new eyes and the new ears to hear all that you're saying and that we might be able to see all that you're doing God in the spirit but just pray these things in Jesus name amen. So I'm not always good. Thank you. I'll only trip over that three times today because I never moved from this Paul February and by the way I've had two cups of coffee today amen I've had two cups so look out I might be on a tear this morning this morning we're gonna be talking about biting I don't always have titles to my messages I've been trying I've been trying to get better than I honestly just want to give you this morning what I feel like God has given me and I don't want to give you anything more I don't want to give you one thing less just exactly the way I feel like Holy Spirit is that it's a holy spirit just let you have your way right now in the name of Jesus let everything be spoken be spoken according to your way your will and your plan right now thank you for that so how many here remember last time when I taught what we talked about anybody I'm always interested like did anything resonated you that you even remotely remember who somebody said it I heard it who said my wife oh god bless her probably the only reason she's heard it for me a hundred times in the house but thank you thank you LAL what's that mean look at us in this right and that was pertaining that God wanted us in the spirit realm to begin to look at things in our lives look at things in our ministry and then begin to ask God are these the things that you want in my life right now are these the things that I should be doing are these are things that you want me to be doing and then do one thing that is extremely difficult sometimes for all of us because this the quiet gets really hard gets really hard sometimes and it's amazing how in the quiet we were trying to listen we can hear all kinds of noises and all kinds of voices and then we could remember a hundred things that we should be doing and Father just want you to sit there because he he's kind of like if he speaks you'll listen if you're listening if you're listening you'll hear a room so we talked about that last time but as we've been talking about all this and consuming all the pastors messages and and all those things and like okay well what's the application right now like we're talking about the more of God in 2024 and we talked about out with the old and in with the new how do we do that like there's something like the rubber has to meet the road right there's got to be a way to do this what is it anything new and it's nothing that you don't already know most of you it's just are we doing it so as clued in probably by what's on the screen today we're going to talk about abiding in the subtitle today is a key to successfully walking into the new of God and the more of God how many here today is that you do you want more of God are you excited about the new things let me just say God's always up to something new yes it's unique in this situation right now because where we're at is a church but God is always up to something new his mercy is our new every morning but God is always up to something new he's always up to something new so you're probably going to guess where i'm going to start this morning who wants to take a quick guess of how i'm going to start this morning we got a word we've got a key text right in our message this morning so the key text is abiding so where do we go from here small person at our nose answers i've already given the eyeball back don't you say a word yeah that's the scripture what does it mean now what does that even mean what does a biting mean well let's talk about it so some cool guy that wrote a dictionary now you know where we're going to have this to say about it 1828 dictionary my favorite dictionary that i claim fame to but my wife tells me she let me do it whatever we're going to read anything listen this is part of the this isn't the whole definition but it's part of it and what i love about know what's here he always takes his definitions from scripture when you see no his definitions there's a line of what it means but below it is a context of a scripture that's what i love about this man but it says to continue permanently what i love about that there's an action you're continuing to do something but you're always doing it or in the same state to be firm and immovable when you're abiding like you're stuck to that thing right and i think i've actually defined when we get into this in john 15 year and a minute but when i think of when they these uh whatever the i don't know what the actual name is but you know when we're grafted in and when they actually grab to plant in or part of a branch is on back onto the tree man that thing gets stuck on there right they got ways of mending that thing on there connecting it back to the river the vine or the tree we had a tree in our yard no time and you want to talk about being connected this thing died dead and it's out in front of our house it's dead everybody's saying it's dead it's dead guess what it's still dead but it's not there anymore in the midst of that thing dying this bush erupts now at the edge of our driveway we've got this monster thing that i have to get on a ladder now to trim i love to hate that bush it's beautiful it looks glorious but i hate getting up on that ladder in trim and that thing but it's alive i thought it was crafted into that root and begin to take nutrients and abide it there in that soil and grew and now look at the fruit of it it's monstrous eight-foot tall got to get up there with my ladder and do all the things the bush should tell you not to do right i want to read to you one more definition how many of you heard of jc ryle in this place one person calculus you all right what's not important in your free time when you live like who was that guy jim said a look after jc ryle he lived from like um 18 20 the 1900s he was an archbishop archbishop but this is what he says about abiding to abide in christ i'm going to read this slowly if you're taking notes this morning write this down and go back and revisit this so we'll go slow here to abide in christ means to keep up a habit of constant close communion with him to abide in christ means to keep up didn't that interesting especially when we get to john we talk about the vine and the vine dresser to keep up to 10 a habit of constant close communion with him to be always say that would be always always leaning on him resting on him and pouring out our hearts to him and using him as our fountain of life and strength as our chief commander and our best friend to have his words abiding in us is to keep his sayings and precepts continually before our memories and minds and to make them our guide of our actions and the rule of our daily conduct and behavior honestly we could just stop and go home and let that preach to us i'm not going to let that happen just yet so if you don't mind sticking around for a few more minutes i appreciate it so angie read this this morning so if you brought your bottles this morning or you want to look at your phones let's turn to john 15 and i have this in both translations but much like angie we're going to read this from the patching translation this morning so i'm going to ask you some questions why we read this so this is full audience participation i am the true sprouting fine and i wish that was back there let's not work like that see when we say you think we all got the lyrics memorized we don't because back there on the screen is all the lyrics if you didn't know if you don't ever turn around let's open the scripture would be back there all right john 15 one through 10 i am the true sprouting fine who's i all right just want to make sure to get this in our spirit man this morning and the farmer i should have just used farmer right there's like a scientific name for the people that tend to measure and they're like really smart everything but anyway and the farmer who tends to buy is my father who's the father oh god all right i'm just making sure right he cares for the branches connected to me who's he he cares for the branches connected to me god right god cares for the branches connecting to jesus by lifting and propping up the fruitful branches from left hello what you heard me how did you drop me down the fruitless branches so what you're saying is i've got a chance how many ever feel like man there's just not a whole lot going on in this right now not a whole lot of fruit sometimes that you can see how i say there's always fruit being produced we'll get into that in a minute however there's been times in my life like man it just doesn't seem god like there's a whole lot of fruits being produced the good news of john 15 is that he's propping things up in your life okay that branch is dirty now and it's not producing so let's get it out of the mud let's pick it up let's pull it up back onto the vine and get it back connected again so that it can bear much fruit so it says he's lifting it up and propping up the fruitless branches and he's pruning every fruitful branch and he's pruning every fruitful branch to yield a greater harvest so how many here ever felt like man i'm producing through i've seen through and what does god keep doing and i don't know if you guys are like me but why does it seem sometimes then what god is pruning us is because i've done something wrong does anybody else ever feel that i mean i hope i'm the only one i don't know what's going on in my mindset sometimes and i'm afraid about that but in times in my life when god has been pruning me like what did i do wrong what did i do wrong maybe he did nothing wrong maybe he's seeing some fruit and maybe he's looking at you and saying you haven't seen anything yet and if you continue to abide in me just you wait and see the fruit because outside of christ i'm paraphrasing now is there anything that we can really do is there any spiritual fruit that we can do make or create outside of christ that should be a resounding note there's no supernatural spiritual fruit outside of christ that you can do that produces anything good i didn't say you can't produce anything but there's no supernatural spiritual fruit that you can produce that will not wither amen let's go on and finish reading a little bit of this so you should if you have time remain in life union with me i'm just checking on you guys so you must remain in life union with me so you don't disconnect yourself for i remain in life union with you does god ever leave us or forsake us so does he ever disconnect himself from you well how about this week we remember that god help you remember that this week for as a branch severed from the mind will what not bear fruit right if you're not connected to the front this says you will not bear fruit so your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately joined to me want to emphasize an adjective or an advert should have paid more attention in english class however intimately right how should you live your life how many know that we can just be joined you want to know how i know that because i'm married and i can be in the same room as my wife for this i can be in the same room with my wife and not even though she's there just checking to see what people look at me like that these chickens gonna be real awkward after church now i'm not intentionally doing that but let's be honest we've probably all been there on some levels right i'm gonna move on to so i don't get any of the truth or maybe not what would happen if somehow i i tripped Stacy she didn't know anything about me i tripped her in a merry way i don't know how you do that but anyway let's just say for the sake of this conversation so we live in the same house we do all these things but there's really a choice that has to be made to really get to the level of being intimate with one another now for the sake of this room intimacy goes far much farther than physical contact in a physical relationship right are you married people yes you're gonna get dropped too so my question this morning as we talk about abiding and you're connected to the bond but are you intimately connected to the buying this morning are you connected enough to even ask the question kind of what does that mean if i'm not really sure one of the hardest things i've had to do recently with my wife is have some discussions that weren't really all that easy to be able to ask and to listen what she had to say but you know what came from it was a greater level of intimacy and a greater level of knowing how much she loves and cares for me likewise if we would be that intimate with Jesus rather than just being satisfied with hey i made it to the vine i'm grafted in rather than just being satisfied with hey not on my way to heaven what is the full experience Jesus that you have for me in longest way which i know god is going to include you picking me up out of the mud during the times when i fall and you're placing me back up onto the vine i know there's times when you're going to cut things away from me and you're going to throw them in the fire to be burned because it's not what you've had planned anyway or not anymore anyway when we're talking about the old right now that's okay sometimes if he wants to cut some things away from you it's okay if he wants to cut some things away from you and say you know what that was good for that season but i've got something new and something more so that's got to be burned because otherwise you're just going to keep going back to the old and you're going to almost begin to utilize that old familiar comfortable place and if you're simply hungry for the new and the more we cannot afford to do that i know i'm skipping around a little bit in this but listen to this part of john 15 this is but when you live separated from me when you live separated from me you're powerless and if a person is separated from me he is discarded and such branches are gathered up and they're thrown into the fire and burned you know there's such power and staying connected to the body and allowing the binder or the farmer to do what he wants in your life but i have to tell you one thing that's really come to me and i don't know if any of you have experienced this this year or not and Stacy and i have been saved for a long time and we've experienced a lot of a lot of things in our lives but when god is on the move guess who else is on the move when your heart begins to hunger and thirst for more god even though this doesn't become our primary focus i just want you to know you probably already know this and you probably mostly already have experienced this the enemy takes notice because when we're satisfied with just being connected to the mind but not intimately connected you're not a threat i am not a threat if i'm just simply satisfied with simply just being connected but the enemy is going to do anything he can to shift us to sneakily try to get in there and obscure truth and give a grab hold of feelings of unworthiness or whatever and it can cause some really crazy things and i don't know how many of you have been around that long there's a river that floats around our church and i don't believe that there's actually any video evidence of this but there's this river that floats around our church that during a certain sermon a certain pastor of the church might have started prancing around like a chicken or something and clucking i don't know we'll pray for that guy i don't know that there's video of that so it might have destroyed when the water came to the tower i want to tell you a quick story so this is how the enemy works sometimes and this is the importance of staying connected to the mind and being intimately connected because if you're not intimately connected you can let your flesh begin to rule and reign rapidly and quickly and i'm about to show you maybe a little bit embarrassingly but i'll let you into our lives and in my life quickly just for the sake of transparency to show you what not to do right so this is a great example of what not to do everybody say what not to do what not to do all right so i'm not proud of this but it's brutal honesty stay safe and have a round vacation all right we were enjoying the sunshine weather of florida and we were enjoying the beautiful white sands of the dust in the area i believe for the sake of this close enough we were having a great time beautiful weather couldn't ask for anything more anyway we've been on the beach all day been out the sun we've got better i may not have all this right by the way you guys know how i end the storytelling sometimes so if you really want an accurate 100% thing ask stacey later i'll get you close enough though i promise so we enjoyed our day we're sitting in our condo that we had rented and we get a phone call phone rings stacey answers her phone and we get a call to Addison our daughter her youngest daughter had had an episode but she had had several of these previously but she had passed out and some of her passing out looks borderline seizures and we've been through the whole thing of going through this for several years and so it wasn't our first time we got the call we got the call that she was in the hospital and they were going to take her to date me i think and because they couldn't get her right here in the line area and so they were going to ship her by ambulance down to Dayton's Children's Hospital and so what happened then was is me being the priest at my home i gathered all the mighty men and women of god that were there and my wife and everybody and we just began to fervently pray we began to look ask and listen over the situation that would have been the right thing to do but instead what we did was we freaked out just a little but we freaked out to such a level that we got on the phone or i got on the phone we called the airline daughter's in the hospital gotta go here we go so we made the phone call and let me tell you have you ever dealt with the airline in trying to get your seat switched finally however long it took it will seem like it took forever and it didn't we got a flight changed right in the meantime in the meantime of all that going on there's conversation on how Hattie's doing and some people from our church went down to be with her because we were there at the moment super grateful for those people and in the end everything was fine and there wasn't really anything that we could do not for more we were in Florida there wasn't anything we could do for her i mean pray yes absolutely but there wasn't anything that we could do right so that's where the chicken came out right that's what i just envisioned in my mind like when we're not grafted the mind and we get into our flesh and we begin to let these situations scenarios begin to rule and reign in our lives instead of reminding ourselves that i am grafted and connected to the king of kings and the lord of lords who has everything at his disposal for then it turned everything to me is at my disposal i let my flesh and my worry rule and reign we call the airlines this is where the chicken comes out all right you look like a chicken with your head cut off running around like oh i don't want to do i mean i so bad when i cluck and do my whole background i'm not going to do it because somebody's got their camera i can see you already not going to happen people i see you but that's what isn't don't you think that's what we look like and don't you think like you just see a chicken running around and we won't use the rest of that expression but they have no clue what they're doing right because the head is not connected anymore right that's the phrase it's not connected anymore it doesn't know what to do but we're supposed to be connected right so after all that like i don't even know what all transpired but the short side of this story in the end was is we didn't even go home what's nothing we could do help was there she's okay we decided to stay well you got to get back on the phone and call it airline and then they are so nice and so gracious to help you when you say hey you know what i know i called you 20 minutes ago and i wanted to change my flight guess what can i change you back oh yes mr. Lewis we'd be delighted to help you with that we'd be delighted to help you with that and they sure were they were very delighted and they also charged us a significant amount of money to stay but do you see what i'm saying sometimes when you get in your flesh and you allow your flesh to have control so this thing connected to the mind and say god what did you say or as the priest of your home or the priest of the moment whichever is the case looking to the father first in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path not in some of your ways when you're feeling stressed stay connected stay put and ask now what he wants to do man i wish i would have done that that would save me some money it could have had tacos again or something but no the chicken had to come out it's time for the chicken to die it's time to be intimate with a king the thing is sometimes so for a minute here i'm going to take two and a half minutes to look at every guy in this place every guy in this place can be difficult to learn what it means to be intimate because we have always had the best teachers some of us have had great teachers and god bless those that have we've not always had the best teachers to show us what manually intimacy it looks like when it pertains to god the father so i challenge you men if you're finding just being disconnected in this moment from even the word intimacy ask yourself holy spirit i know i know you're the greatest teacher of all would you teach me what it means to be intimate with you because you see we sing songs like i just want to sit at your feet guys a lot of times can relate to that what does that mean i want to sit at your feet i've got to be careful here because i'm already two minutes but i challenge you men if you're desiring the more of god and the new then ask holy spirit show me what it means to be more intimate with you show me what it means to be intimately connected to the mind show me what it means to be intimately abiding in you because i got i know that apart from this there's nothing good there's no good fruit apart from you and god i know that there's greater inside of me because you said there was so i allow you now to go ahead god i give you permission to prove me be careful here because he will but if it's what you desire men look at because the fruit that you're about to bear is going to be ginormous there's this other truth that the enemy always seemingly tries to do and he tries to do it so much of the body of christ when it comes to abiding he wants to try to give you into your flesh but he also wants to make you think that you deserve nothing he's not wrong i don't deserve anything but in christ i deserve whatever he said and you want to know what he said the bible says in Ephesians let's just read it you don't need to hear me let's just read the word god and let it resonate because Ephesians 2 we're going to read this out of the new living translation this morning but god is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins he gave us life when he raised christ from the dead it is only by god's grace that you have been saved for he raised us from the dead so he raised us that's what that verse is saying us his sons and daughters he raised us from the dead along with christ and he seated us with him in heavenly realms because we are united with christ jesus i can hear you already jimmy preach about that all the time and i do because it's really important and it's a trick in my pat i'm not going to have you come up this morning it's okay pat always crunches when i get that scripture out and i pull him up on the stage i won't do that this morning but listen to what this says and the passion and translation and if you don't hear anything else get this part in your spirit this morning as it pertains to abiding this is he raises this up with christ jesus the exalted one and we ascended with him into the glorious perfection and authority of the heavenly realm and here it is for we are now co-seeded as one with christ and see maybe you guys get tired of hearing this but i've said it a hundred times i wasn't the kid that got picked to be on anybody's kickball team i was the last kid so interject their kickball softball basketball whatever game you play as a kid other than uh dark darts they always wanted me to be at the end when they were throwing the darts and i don't know trying to catch him or something but outside of that i was never picked to be on any team like that but here's the thing god picked you when you said yes to him he picked you up and he said hey dude come sit with me co-seeded with christ i got me a big old chair dude come sit with me i want you i chose you does that not make you feel good man finally i got picked to be on somebody's team and i got picked to be on the best team you know why because there's a team that wins it's the team that wins in the end if you stay on the team if you show up for practices if you hang out you win but the enemy always comes in wants to know who do you think you are sitting up here jesus i saw what you did last week i saw what you did last week you should be disgraced you should even be up here man immediately tries to bring in the feeling and the unworthiness now we can either have a moment and we can begin to believe oh he's got a point maybe i shouldn't be up here but we can have hey i'm connected to the vine and here's my response when the devil tries to interject any feeling of unworthiness inside of me i said devil i don't put me up here anyway i think you talk into the wrong person this morning you're whispered in the wrong ear this morning because see i didn't there's not no thing i could do to put me in that seat this morning there's no ounce of worthiness to put me in that seat but every ounce of the blood of jesus put me in that scene is the blood of jesus that made me worthy and it's the blood of jesus it's going to remind me to stay connected and be drafted into the king of kings in the lower world and by the way all the glory and all power comes from me being seated in that chair you see at the end of john and talks about those who are totally fruitful are the mature ones now i feel like i'm way far from being a total immature but at some point you kind of remember what you know you hear what i'm saying and here's the thing abiding or not abiding both have fruit and let me explain because i know what the word of god says that apart from me you can do nothing and if you're not burying any fruit then you're going to be burned up but i've always said you're always bearing fruit you're always bearing fruit of some nature you can see if you're in christ we should be burying the fruits of the spirit we'll get to that in a minute but if you're not in christ not moving in the flesh was there anything in that moment in that living room in florida that was spiritual no it was frantic it was chaos it was feared it was anxiety it was worrying are all those listed in Galatians about the fruits of the spirit i don't remember one of those and i certainly didn't see next to it a picture of a chicken running around with a tent cut off so saints of god who called him to sit up here on this stage if this is the stage of where jesus is singing he did how many no brother bar and still hey she knows him well he tells an amazing story but listen to this he got covid god bless him that's because he knows so many people i wish he was in the room right now i'm going to tell him that's why you got covid you're around all those people you know but regardless he ended up with covid he was a sick dude he was a sick man not feeling good i mean he felt like he got ran over by an act truck i think that was the expression but here's the cool thing he stayed connected to the binary at that time and sometimes the voice of god comes from strange places came from a donkey who wants to be the donkey look at all the hands raised you should look around right now look around see it all well not one person sometimes it sounds like your wife though see buyer was trying to be connected to the vine but this was mentioned in leadership this morning i want you to get this this morning is a great a bunch of grapes connected to the vine recall what ooh a cluster now i am a great everybody say i'm great i don't know why i did that that's like the teapot story i don't know where that came from then i'm a great right are you a great are you connected to the vine yeah yeah come here man are you great hey dude let's be a cluster together right see when you were here don't go anywhere when you when i was here you would just get the taste of this great and it made a spin on your man i just saw that gross sorry that's why my iPad there was full spin anyway got a problem but listen i'm great he's a great and listen i'm connected to the vine and i'm connected to jesus and it's sweet and i can have interaction with all kinds of people and hopefully they're if i stay connected they're getting jesus but wouldn't you want to talk about kingdom right and we're a cluster you think right through this now what are they getting a taste of what god looks like in joey and jim and if i were to thank you if i were to bring you all up here make a great big cluster that's what the world gets when we become the kingdom and the body of christ and we're all intimately abiding in him they get a taste of this cluster and it looks like jesus because we're crafted in him i didn't spin on you two didn't i okay do you see what i'm saying no stick connected to him it's so important man when i was sick and i didn't work for a year and i'm not getting into telling the whole story that man has all the enemy wanted me to do was to think there's no love anyone who pulled me away and the crazy thing about this story and the reason that i brought up Stella began to declare declare some things over Byron that he's whole and by his stripes the word declare and declare even though he was already doing it she joined her group with his group and then we got some magnificent fruit because we're all intimately abiding in the line do you understand the power of this abiding i'm telling you whatever the power of jesus is is in you because he said so this is why all the time i'm constantly reminding myself that truth what did jesus say dude i'm a lovey dovey touching feeling i'm sorry it's who got named me i will cry you know watching et i'm sorry that cute little rascal even if you thought i was ugly was about to die and that crushed me crushed me wanted to phone mom so bad listen it's not about my feelings and you see because i know who i am in christ i know and i've learned over the years that the enemy is going to try to use that against me how you feeling right now buddy where's your god now well let me tell you where my god is he's right here and he's alive and he's working all things together because i love him he's working all things together because i love him i'm not perfect but i love you jesus so i know you're up to something good regardless of what the storm in front of me looks like because i'm connected to you and if you said that we're going to the other side then it doesn't matter what the storm looks like jesus had the ability to see what the father saw on the front side the father said we're going to the other side that's who said that first and because jesus was connected and a biden in the vine his father he's like hell i'm connected to my father and he said we're going to hit a side and by the way he said take the disciples with you the father said that how do i know that because jesus only goes what the father said to do so jesus says it out of his mouth get the reflection of what's going on here and how we can declare them things more intimately abiding in him the father didn't tell jesus hey you're going to the other side and you're all going to die he said you're you're going to the other side take the disciples with you that's what we know jesus says all right disciples let's get in the boat we're going to the other side right okay we're wrapping up here hang with me for a few more minutes jesus says to do that now listen they didn't have airplanes back then but let's translate this story to an airplane okay god the father tells jesus get on the airplane take the disciples with you because i need you to get you over here okay jesus grabs the disciples they get on the plane they load up the plane and they go and in the midst of this the pilot decides amen i've never flown through a hurricane before that'd be cool let's see what happens in the meantime jesus is in first class he's sleeping he's music why is jesus music here comes the chicken why is jesus snoozing? because jesus remembered what the father said because he was so intimate with him he was so connected to him that there was no fear in jesus that moment that the crazy pilot decided on the way to get to the other side where they decided to fly through a hurricane now if jesus would have said hey disciples let's get in the airplane and by the way we're going to fly through a hurricane come on we're going to make it to the other side disciples in this room how many of you would have gotten on the plane my name ain't nobody there oh my god look at this but did they get into the other side yeah that should be the resounding thing that we hear you're always going to have storms people that's the word of god because he's faithful to deliver us out of the moment i say our god is faithful to deliver us out of the moment so we have to learn in our intimate abiding to declare the word of truth over ourselves in our situations right we're going to get it right sometimes we're not going to get it right times and it may cost you some money and i'm telling you the amount of money that it was we could have bought tacos for the whole room and you could eat as much as you want but in this season and i know you guys are tired of hearing this and there's time my flesh is tired of hearing this but at the same time my spirit man is so excited and i shared this this morning in leadership and our prayer meeting that we have this is such an exciting time for you personally and as a ministry of new life Christian ministries because there's this wide open blank canvas in front of us this is i'm doing a new thing and there's so much more in its rich but here's the thing i don't know what to expect but yet uh sister Beth and the baby says but yet we have this heavenly expectation that it's going to be good because that's who he is that's who god is we just got done singing he's good he's good you sang it out of your mouth he's good but do you believe it this is why this morning when we started singing those songs like engaging you guys do you believe what you're singing in this moment now i'm getting on a rabbit trail here forgive me for three seconds but listen we got to stop singing songs because those are the lyrics on the screen yeah and i'm guilty i'm guilty but when we sang that song that we've sang a thousand times and it's my favorite song i love that song and you may be sick and tired of it i get it all that when i see jesus nothing else having one thing that's on some days because god i don't really know if my heart's in that right place yet that's hard to say in front of you guys that's the honest truth like i gotta fight that just like you fight it but it's worth a fighting because my god's good my god has good all the time and he's faithful to do everything that he promised you do you hear me this morning my god and your god is faithful to do everything that he promised you he would do so stay close to him and here's the sweetest thing about biting can you imagine for a year being stuck in the same room with the same person hopefully somebody like but just think about that like in the only time maybe that you're out of their presence is when you go to use the restroom and you would know everything about that person when you you would know their routines how they did stuff you know how how they smelled two days after doing a certain activity you know when there's a sweet intimacy like god how much do i really know here we always think that sometimes like this thing of being seated in christ means inactivity it means nothing farther from the truth when we're abiding when the father moves we move but we're still seated with him you hear what i'm saying you're moving being seated is not a season of inactivity being seated isn't necessarily a season of inactivity when he rests we rest when he moves we move when he says speak we speak but there's a place an intimate abiding where your spirit man knows how many of you have been around somebody going up that you can finish their sentences how many have been around somebody so on even though they're not sure at the end of the sentences you finish it further better yeah that's the way it is with Jesus that's the way it is with Jesus if we choose to stay connected to him and i'm just saying if you desire for more in 2024 and if you desire the new things of christ there's there's one simple recipe right now i don't know if it's simple there's one recipe let me phrase it that way stay put look to your neighbor i don't like newness look at your neighbor right now i say stay put now say it like you mean it stay put you see when we chose to follow Jesus he picked us up and he grabbed at us in the hand he connected us he seated us all these things are a reflection of the same thing the reflections of the same thing that's happening here but what we can't afford to do in the season is do the whole thing the thing that we always used to do but this is how i approached it before so are you willing to look ask and listen in this new season we kind of know this is the way that i always said do you want me to do it yeah keep doing it yes sir keep doing it then but here's the thing religion and man and traditions of men will get us in a lot of trouble and they too will try to keep us disconnected from the mind because we can keep doing the same things if you like christian ministries but if god didn't say do them we're in disobedience and what happens is when we become fruitless like that he's like listen guys those branches have to go on the fire those branches have to go on the fire they're no good anymore got something new now a little bit ago a bunch of you said verbally that you were wanting more than 24 in the new so if that was you would you do me a favor if you said that this morning would you just simply stay in right now and don't be embarrassed if you don't stand up it's cool i've been in that place where i probably wouldn't have stood up before because it was so interesting but if you said that like man yet if your spirit's excited about what god is doing in this season just want you to stay in and he let you through some decrease this morning and if you can get that piece of paper if you don't have it does it go on the end yes on the end thank you get on our church app those decrease are on there but Andy asked you to do something and i want to echo from here i challenge you this morning to take those per decrease this week take them home with you there's paper copies in the back so if you don't have our church app grab a paper copy you can take it home with you and put it in your Bible now i will simply ask you and i'm not simply asking you doing this for me because if you do this you will begin to see some things change you will begin to see some things change in your life when you begin to declare the word of god over your life you see the power isn't necessarily in your words the power is in the word of god that's coming out of your mouth it's just a spectacular moment when the word of god means your declaration and that declaration goes forth into the atmosphere because it begins to change you and it puts the devil on notice the word of truth is being declared right now so i want you to do that how many of you would commit to doing that this week i'm not putting it telling you how many times i've done that and also follow social but take that paper get on the app and begin to do with angie ask you to do and begin to declare and decree those things over your own lives so father god i thank you right now i thank you that you chose us father god and that you connected us to you divine and father god we thank you that you're going to take great care of us that you're going to pull us up out of the mud and keep us pulled up to where we can bear much fruit and those things that are no longer producing fruit or need to produce more fruit or can produce more fruit father god with a spirit of expectation right now in the spirit god would just say yes god do it here we are here i am god and i want to bear much fruit for you and your kingdom so help me at every moment in every stage of my life to be connected to you and now run off run abroad or run around god and then my flesh and the enemy cheered me into being anywhere else other than where you see me being a connected man what per these things now in jesus name amen