REWIND

Not a Resolution, a Relationship (December 28, 2025)

• Organic Church • Season 2 • Episode 60

Share episode

Send us a text

What if your word for the year isn’t a word at all, but a posture? We set our sights on Matthew 19:14 and center the coming year on children, safety, and formation—because welcoming the next generation is more than a sentiment; it’s a kingdom assignment. From a real allergy scare to a renewed check-in system, we connect conviction to action and show how love, planning, and prayer work together.

We also challenge the annual resolution cycle. Resolutions feel inspiring, but they’re optional; covenant is not. Through honest stories—failed treadmills, caffeine missteps, and learning to pray first—we trace a path from motivation to abiding. Seeking God first reshapes speech, calendars, and choices. Instead of sprinkling a little “church” onto a busy life, we rebuild the center so obedience flows instead of feels forced. John 15 reframes fruitfulness: apart from the vine, effort turns shiny but rotten; connected to Jesus, hidden roots produce durable, nourishing fruit.

This conversation moves from Sunday inspiration to Monday formation. We talk humility over pride, honesty over image, and leadership that points our homes to Christ in both valleys and mountaintops. Romans 12:1 calls us to become living sacrifices—daily, not seasonal. We even embrace pruning for growth, trusting that surrender makes room for the Spirit to mature us. If God refuses second place, what sits on your throne? Join us as we trade resolutions for relationship, safety theater for real care, and temporary motivation for an abiding life that our kids can follow.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—what will you surrender this year?

SPEAKER_00:

Let the kids move back to kids' class. And you know, I always the last Sunday of the year, I always share the vision for the following year, and I want to do that today. But I want to tell you that it's different than it normally is because normally I try to stick to a word, right? A specific word. Can somebody turn those lights up, please? All the way up. Please and thank you. All the way up. Thank you. So normally I have one word and the Lord speaks it to me, and we really just hash it out. And this year, I kept going before the Lord and I kept saying, Lord, what is it that you would have me focus on in 2026? Lord, what is the word? What is the thing? What is the statement? And he said, he kept reminding me of Matthew 19, and I kept reading it and I was like, Lord, I don't know where you're going with it. You read all of Matthew 19, I just couldn't figure out where he was going with it. And he said to me the other day, it was very clear, he said, Does anybody have the Lord talk to you like that? Sometimes he has to fight with me a little bit because I'm stubborn or I'm not listening the way he wants me to. But I was reading it again and I went, there it is. Because he said to me, Do you think I brought you this far so that you could just stop? And I was like, Well, Lord, I never said I was gonna stop. And he said, But do you think that I brought you this far so that you could just stop? And then it re it was a revelation. It's Matthew 19. You ready? 14. But Jesus said, Let the children come to me. Don't stop them. For the kingdom of heaven belong to such as these. And I realized that all of this that feels like we've had this great move for ourselves, right? Like I love this space a whole lot better than the old space. I love this. But he didn't do it because I wanted to do it. He did it because if you look around, our children's ministry is growing at a pace so fast that we can't sustain it. And he's given us the opportunity to grow that. See, he didn't call us to this place just for our own sake. He called us to this place for the sake of the kingdom and the sake of the next generation. And so if you guys want to, I hope that you will pray this with me over the next year, just as we move into 2026. Write Matthew 19, 14 down on an index card and stick it to your bathroom mirror, or you know, I would tell you to use it as a bookmark in your Bible, but a lot of you don't carry physical Bibles anymore. Um, but I want you to meditate on this word and really pray about it because we should be praying up the next generation of the church. Amen? And that's what I want us to do together in 2026. And that is the passage of scripture that we're gonna stand on because I believe that old things shall pass away. Unfortunately, I'm gonna be an old thing someday, right? And if we don't raise up the next generation of the church, the church won't exist. I don't mean this building, I'm talking about the the church of Jesus Christ, it will not exist. All right, I'm done, I'm off my soapbox. That's your 2026, okay? We ready? All right. Uh, with that, I should tell you the text message that's going to come asking you to you can download the app and register and do all of those fun things. Um, we're actually going to be utilizing that for children's ministry as well. We're going to be able to register our kids, they'll get name tags, and they'll get food allergies, and any um health issues or health concerns that they have will be printed right on their name tag and they'll be directed into the appropriate classrooms. Now, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but we had a scare a couple of weeks ago. Right? No tree nuts. No tree nuts, okay? So listen, we send our kids back there and we don't think to tell people that they can't have our kids can't have certain things. Oh Lord have mercy. I was preaching one Sunday, this commotion starts happening over here. I'm like, I'm gonna preach through it because that's what I do, but I have no idea what's happening. And I see a large group of people get up and leave in a hurry. After service, I find out that one of the kids in kids' ministry was given a granola bar and he's allergic to tree nuts. All right? He takes the bite and says, Oh, by the way, I'm allergic to tree nuts. Uh oh. So we came and found mom. He went back, he went home, he was fine, nothing major, he was okay. But it made us realize that there are risks to having children's ministry. And so it had been the plan all along. It just expedited the plan. And so we know that with that passage of scripture that that's what God is calling us to in this season. So that um that registration doesn't just help us, it helps you as well. It keeps your kids safe. Um, and we know where everybody's at it all the time at all times. All right, years coming to an end, we're starting a new one, right? Anybody making a New Year's resolution this year? Good. Because I'm not either. Because here's what I've learned. If I make a New Year's resolution, what am I not gonna do? Follow through. Listen, I had a treadmill in my basement, then I moved to my new house. Wait, you moved it. Well, okay. I didn't move it. I didn't move it. Now, in fairness, I did have to get it down the basement steps with my wife and oldest son, and that was a fight. So I realized I make these commitments in life and I never follow through with them, right? It's so hard to commit, and what do we commit to? We commit to eating better, drinking more water, being healthier, being kinder. Right? We commit to these things and we realize very quickly we get about two weeks in and we're not following through. See, here's what's gonna happen with the 21 days of prayer and fasting, too. A lot of us are gonna commit to 21 days of prayer and fasting for about three days. It is the hardest 21 days for me whenever I decide to give up soda. Right? Now I have committed to and I do it. You know, when Alyssa was pregnant with Emmett, I had decided that I was going to commit to fasting all caffeine until Emmett was born. And my decision was that the minute that he came out, I was gonna drink as much caffeine as I could possibly have. And so I had settled on drinking root beer because root beer is caffeine-free, right? I still get my fizzy soda, but it's caffeine-free. Exactly. Bark's root beer is not caffeine-free. Guess what I drank for nine months? Bark's root beer. Had no idea. Learned that lesson. But I learned that I can make a commitment but not follow through. And it's so much easier than following through. Well, here's the thing: we're gonna stand on, we're standing on the edge of a new year, and we know that the gyms will be full, our planners will be fresh, and promises will be made. The problem is some people are going to commit to being in church more, right? Some people are going to commit to spending more time in the word, and those people will fail just like everybody else. Do you know why? Change was never meant to be a resolution. Change was meant to be a commitment, right? And so when we make a resolution to be in church more to increase our relationship with God, we realize very quickly that all we're doing is trying to convince ourselves that it's what we should do. Conviction will happen in our lives and we'll be convinced that we should make meaningful change. The problem is, will we make meaningful change? Can we commit and follow through with real meaningful change? Resolutions are optional. Amen? Because who's gonna be mad at you if you stop? Nobody. I ran on that treadmill three times. Three times. And I had every excuse for the reason that I couldn't run on that treadmill. Because, see, when I put it in the basement, when I would run on it, the rafters were really close to my head, and I was afraid I was gonna hit my head. Ain't gonna knock anything out of me, right? So I realized very quickly that I had no follow-through, no commitment, because that resolution was optional. That was an optional decision. But can I tell you something? That when you commit to a relationship with Christ, it is essential. It is not optional. This isn't something we do because we think we want to do it, it's something we do because we know we have to do it. Amen. Now there may be some people sitting here who don't realize that they have to do it, and they come to church just to put the check in the box and to say that they've been, but let me promise you something being in relationship with Jesus is not optional, it is essential. I've said this a couple of times, and I I love this, love every time I get to use this. You don't get to work on your marriage one time a year. Right? It's not how it works, right? If I'm married to my, I'm thankful my wife's not in here today because I can talk about her. See, if all I ever did was on her birthday or our anniversary or Valentine's Day or whatever, I said, Hey, I love you. I just want you to know. That was supposed to sustain her for a full year? That's never gonna work. Anybody ever tried that? Roger says, Amen. That's why his wife ain't here right now. She's been digging a hole in the backyard for about 14 years. One Sunday at a time, baby. I'm kidding. It doesn't work when you commit to only doing it one time a year. Listen, we don't experiment with a relationship with Christ, right? It's not an experiment. See, we show up for I remember whenever I first started coming to church, I showed up because I knew I needed something different in my life. Anybody else show up to church because of that? I didn't show up because I thought I needed Jesus. I showed up because I thought I needed something different. I didn't know that Jesus was the different, right? All of the things that I was trying to fill that void with, I just kept tacking on on top of other things, buying stuff and doing things and going places, and that never filled the void. It wasn't until I surrendered my life to Jesus that that void was able to be filled. And even after that, I still found myself battling with those same things day in and day out. Because I was never called to perfection. I was called to be Christ-like, and I was called to walk into being Christ-like. Listen, if you're sitting here today and you say I'm not worthy of the love of Jesus, I want to promise you something. You are worthy of the love of Jesus. You are absolutely worthy. You may be broken, you may look at yourself in the mirror and think this is an ugly person, not because I'm physically ugly, but because of the things that I've done and said to other people. But let me tell you something. That's not what God thinks. He sees broken, but he sees beautiful. He sees broken, he says confused, lost, hurt, hurtful, but he sees you as beautiful. I don't think we understand just how important it is to not experiment with God. And that we should we shouldn't be testing out God as a convenience. We should be in relationship with Christ as a covenant, right? So I always say to my wife, when her and I got married, we made a covenant between each other and before God. That means that that covenant is sealed in the eyes of heaven, not just in our eyes, not just the people who were there, but in the eyes of God. We were, we we created a covenant together, but we committed to making him the center of all things. Right? I will promise you this, men, hear me. If you are not committed to this, your marriage will always feel tumultuous. Right? Why is that? Because you are putting other things before your wife. Things that are not important. Right? Now, women, you can do the same thing. It does tend to be us men because we are less emotional creatures. Right? We don't say I love you. Some people do, not many of us. Is that true? Thank you. Thank you, Dale. Being the only one brave enough to admit it. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay. Listen, I will remind myself. Like, have you ever put a note in your phone to tell your wife she's beautiful? Nothing wrong with that, guys. Sometimes I gotta remind. I think you know, I was sitting at work the other day and I thought, man, I am a blessed man. My wife is at home dealing with my heathen children. I'm sitting at work at a quiet desk with my earpod in, watching YouTube videos, right? My wife is dealing with my screaming children. And I think, man, every day she wakes up and thinks that she is blessed. She has no idea how blessed I really am. She has no idea how blessed I truly am. But see, I can't test my marriage every 30 days. I can't test my marriage once a year. It is a covenant that I've made with my wife and before God, and the same with my relationship with Christ. Amen. And so when I focus on Christ being the center of the marriage, and I focus on Christ being the center of my life, it becomes much easier to deal with the hard things that life will throw at us. Pastor Holly and I were talking last evening. She was here cleaning and I was here working on a couple of projects. And I said, in the face of adversity, leaders always have to be able to lead, right? Can you imagine dealing with some of the most terrible things in your life and you still have to lead other people, not just the right way, but to Christ? When sometimes we're questioning what Christ is doing in our own lives? Thank you, Jesus. I want to remind you that that's what strong leadership looks like. Men, we should be strong leaders in our house. We lose our job, we lead our family to Christ, right? Our car breaks down, we lead our family to Christ. Um, you know, Alyssa and I have friends, and and it's hard to believe, I know, but we do. And one of the things that one of the friends said, she always says to her husband, Did you pray about it? And I said, You know, if you started doing that to me, I'd wanna. And then one day she said it to me, I was like, you know what? Actually, I didn't. Good reminder, maybe I probably should. And when I did, there was revelation. When you put Christ at the center of your relationship, and when you put Christ at the center of your life, all things become much more easy to deal with. See, it's not something to have, it's something to build our lives around, right? If we put Jesus in the center and we build our lives around that, life becomes so much easier. And when I say easier, it gives us a place to go when life isn't right. Because I'm telling you, the minute that you start following Jesus and genuinely start following Jesus and you're in love with Jesus, man, that's really hard for us to say, isn't it? To be able to say that I love Jesus with my whole heart. Every fiber of my being is in love with Jesus. I sat here on the floor this morning and I just sat there and I thought, man, I'm so blessed. I'm blessed with a house full of people that love me, or so I think, and I'm just gonna believe that. I don't care what you think, I'm gonna choose to believe that. But with a father that loves me more than anything else in the entire listen, he loves me more than he loves you. At least that's what I believe, right? And he loves you more than he loves. It's hard to believe. There is no limit to his love, and none of us are loved better than the other. You know, we are all unique just like everyone else. You are unique, I am unique. We are all unique just like everyone else. It's hard to understand. It's almost, it's almost a paradox where we just keep circling back. But here's the thing God doesn't just want a time slot in your life. He doesn't just want to want you to say at 9 a.m. I'm gonna get up and pray. I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna make sure I read my Bible before I get in the car to go to work. He's not asking you for a time slot. He's asking to be at the center of your life. Okay, in all things. Nick, I I love talking to Nick. Every time I talk to him, he says the same thing to me. He says, I'll be at work and just having a rough day, and I just start talking to God like he's a friend. Let's go, right? Men, we should be able to do that more. I don't I'm picking on men today. I'm sorry, guys, but I hope you're listening. Because that's what we should be able to do, right? I've had conversations with men that say, like, when I get to work, I'm around a bunch of shop talk and I talk like they talk, but I would never say that in the presence of my wife. Come on now. That ain't Jesus, right? Listen, if you can't say it in church or in front of your kids, you probably shouldn't say it at all. Right? Some people will say there's a pastor in the room. Listen, I don't want you to say it because I'm a pastor. I want you to say it because you love Jesus. I don't want you to change your life because you know that you have a pastor friend. I want you to change your life because you love Jesus. Matthew 6, 33. Can we pull that up? It says, seek the kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Leave that up. It says, seek the kingdom of God above all else. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Amen. Not seek ye second, not seek ye third, seek ye first. Now, what does that mean? That means before I open my stupid mouth, I need to seek the kingdom of God. Is what I'm gonna say glorifying to the person I'm gonna say it to, the thing I'm gonna say it about, right? And if the answer is no, stop saying it. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Now you can sit next to somebody and you can bellyache and you can complain, but how is that benefiting the kingdom of God? The answer is it isn't, but somehow we can just I'm not gossiping, I'm just telling you the truth. If you ain't saying it to their face, you're gossiping. Right? If you're not saying it to their, listen, if you can't say it to them, just don't say it at all. I promise you, there's something I've learned, and I've learned it hard this past year. 2025's been a year for me, folks. I've seen some stuff that I never thought God would put me in. And I say God put me there because He did, and for a reason. I want to remind you that I lost my job. I'm making a third of what I was making before. But money isn't everything. I have a healthy family, I have a roof over our head, and every time I thought God wouldn't, guess what? And then some. I said, How are we gonna make a mortgage payment on a third of our income? And God said, Watch this, and a check in the mail for two months' worth of mortgage payments. We weren't counting on that, but God is good all of the time. See, he puts us in the trial so that we can trust him on the mountaintop. Listen, we all get to the mountaintop at some point in our lives, right? We're feeling real good, looking good, smelling right. By the way, my kids got body spray for Christmas. I'm sorry if they assault your senses when you walk by them. But whenever God puts me in that valley, I have to think, what am I supposed to learn today? God, I am giving you the glory in all things because in all things that is what you deserve. I shouldn't be trying to figure out how to fix it myself. I should be going to the Father in prayer. I should be seeking him first above all things. He didn't say seek him when life calms down. He also didn't say to seek him when you have time. He said, seek him first. Above everything else, we should be looking to the Father. Can I promise you something? God refuses to be second place. Right? That's scary. Because you know what I realized? I was working that job, making good money, loving life, loving life. And I was loving money. I was loving the ability to go and do and have whatever we wanted. And God became second in my life. And then he yanks all of that stuff away, and you realize, oh, real quick. Grace and mercy. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. God does not choose to be, God does not get angry being second place because he is insecure. But because he knows that everything will collapse around you if you leave him in second place. Amen. You're sick? Go to God. You're hurt? Go to God. You're broken? Probably go to the hospital if you're broken, but no, I'm just kidding. Go to God. I'm gonna pray on my way to the hospital, right? I'm gonna go to God on the way to the hospital. We try to put God as a block in our calendar, right? And what I mean by that is we sign up for Sunday service. We know we're gonna be, most of us know we're gonna be at church on Sunday. But we forget about all of the other things. See, we've got a work block, we've got a family block, we've got our free time over here where we get to work on our hobby, and then we've got this little bitty slice set aside for God. Now, in the first of the year, one of the things that my family always does is we give the first fruits of our labor to God, right? We pray over that and we know that whatever we're committing to Him is what we're gonna give. And I will remind you that one of the things that my family did, and I'm not saying everybody should do this, but even when I lost my job, we gave God, we gave our tithe on what I was making, on what I should have been making, not what I was making. And God cared for us through that entire season of our lives. And I'll tell you that sometimes you have to realize the pain in what God has called you to, right? That life is not simple, it is not easy, that there is pain in what God will have you learn. See, God says, if I don't fit in your schedule, redefine it, right? We're not trying to put God in a block, we're trying to make God the foundation and everything else fits around Him. What does that look like in our calendars? That looks like something like what Nick did. I'll commit to praying every morning on my way to work, I'll commit to changing my lifestyle to just be praise and worship music. I will commit to different standards in my life. But at the end of the day, what truly matters to me is that when in any situation, good, bad, or indifferent, I can go straight to the throne. That I can go straight to the Father in prayer and I can say, Lord, let your will be done. Not my will, Father, but your will, Lord, should it be your will. You I listen, I'll ask God. I pray big, I pray specific, right? I want to tell a story that Mike McNutt told me a long time ago. When his first wife was sick, he prayed that she would see her kids graduate. And I I I don't want to speak to this exactly, but I think it was four or five days after her last daughter graduated, she passed away. And he said, Had I known at that point that I could pray big and pray specific, that she could still be seeing her kids get married, grandchildren born, right? If it is his will. And it's people who are non-believers say, Oh, you just use that as an excuse. I want to tell you something. Sometimes God is using these things in our lives not to create turmoil, not to create chaos, and not to create doubt, but to create closeness for you to be able to lean on him in those darkest times, in those most broken moments, right? I have never in my life, never in my life, when I lost my job, I called my wife and I apologized. I didn't lose my job because of something I had done. I lost my job because they had restructured the company. And I called my wife and I apologized. And you know what she said to me? What are you apologizing for? You didn't do anything. And I said, but I feel like a failure. And she said, All the things in life that you could be, that is not one of them. That is not listen, I don't fail, I learn. Can we embrace that this season in 2026? Listen, you're gonna screw up, things are gonna be broken. It's not gonna look good, it's not gonna be pretty, but you are going to learn something in that season. A resolution is about behavior, and the relationship, are you ready? Because here we go again. Week number five is about surrender. Relationship is about surrender. Resolutions always focus on one simple thing. What we will do, right? It's what I will do, but the relationship focuses on who he is. Not even what he will do, but who he is and his goodness in all things. Amen. This isn't about us deciding whether or not we want to follow a Jesus who doesn't always give us what we want. I have never treated God like a genie. You rub the lamp, you ask for something, and you expect to get it. Listen, that's prosperity, gospel, and you ain't ever gonna get it here. You ain't ever gonna get it here because that is for the weak-minded. Right? That is for the Christian who wants to drink milk, not the Christians who want to eat meat. You show up here every Sunday because you want meat, right? I am hungry for the word of God, and because I am hungry, I will feed you too. Amen. Psalms 51:17. It says, the sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, oh God. The sacrifice that God desires, when it says you, it's talking about God, is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart. You know, anytime I think of broken heart, this is again, give me some grace. It's just the way my mind works. Do you remember uh in the Grinch when they show you his heart for the first time and it's this little tiny broken heart, right? That's what I think about every time I think about having a broken and repentant heart. Because when my heart is truly broken to the Father, and I am repentant of the things that I am doing that are not glorifying to the kingdom, my heart will continue to grow. That space doesn't get filled with yucky worldly things, it gets filled with the love of the Father, it gets filled with the Spirit. Before God changes your habits, He asks you for your heart. You have to surrender. Right? I I I read this the other day. The scripture has to confront before it can comfort. Right? When you read scripture and it feels like it's attacking you, it's confronting something in your life, right? And then eventually you'll read that passage of scripture again and you'll find great comfort in it because you're gonna say, God, you saw me through that season of life. Right? It has to confront before it can comfort. Can we can we write that one down? Can we remember that? Before God can change our habits, He asks for your heart. Before He fixes your behavior, whoo, He looks for humility. Are you changeable? Are you moldable? Listen, there are some people who show up every Sunday and they walk in here and they just think, as Florence would say, they're all that and a bag of chips. Right? Walk through the door just thinking they're something else. And every time God puts them in their place, they get angry. And they don't understand why why am I why why am I feeling this way? Why do I feel rejected by people that that say that they love me? Can I tell you why you're rejected by by people that say that they love you? Because you are not humble. You don't have humility, you lack humility. Do you know what that says? Do you know what humility is? I don't come here to be on a pedestal. I come here to serve. Because this is service, right? This is me doing my part. Do you know each and every one of you preach every Sunday just by how you carry yourself and how you treat other people? If you're serving in the coffee shop, that is your own ministry. You are serving people, you are preaching the gospel by putting other people before you. Because I can promise you this there are a lot of other things I'd rather be doing on Sunday than preaching. I'd rather be sleeping. Anybody else want to nap right now? Lord have mercy, right? Like I just said to Danny, if napping was an Olympic sport, I could win. Like I know I could win, but I get up and I serve anyway. I'm here at seven o'clock in the morning to pray over these chairs. I'm here interceding, just saying, God, bring them in. Fill this house, not Father, so that I have an audience, but Lord, so that they can hear your word. It is not about a performance. It's listen, I love music ministry, it's my favorite part. That's how I got saved, right? Was music ministry. If we cut music ministry out, half the people that are here would stop showing up. Because they'd be like, ah, the message is okay, but really I'm coming for an experience. God is not asking you here for an experience. He's calling you here for a relationship, right? He's calling us here so that we can grow and fall in love with him. You know that song Deep in Love with You, Michael W. Smith's song, man? I love that song. I love it because it reminds me every day that I should be so deep in love with the Father that the things that are happening in the world around me don't matter because I know that he's got me. I know that he is gonna care for me. Oh, Lord have mercy. You grow closer to God by admitting honestly. Okay? What I mean is that when you fall short of the glory of God, you don't try to hide it. Because God already knows, right? But we're hoping the other people around us didn't notice. And so we hide it. Because if you come to me and you say, Pastor Michael, I know you asked me to do this thing and I didn't do it. I'm sorry. I was preoccupied with this, or I didn't, I I just I forgot about it, whatever. I'm gonna say thank you for being honest. How do we fix it? But if you lie to me and I think you fixed it, and then I find out you didn't fix it, how is that glorifying God? How is that good for the kingdom when we're realizing that we aren't following through on our commitment to one another, let alone our commitment to the ministry? I love self-help books. Do you guys read self-help books? The let them theory is my jam. Right? If you guys haven't read that book, you need to read that book. Because I'm gonna tell you what, I went through a period of my life about four weeks ago. That's probably longer than that. And I read that book and I was like, Yeah, let them. Let them, and then let me not care. Right? I'm telling you, you gotta read it. What I'm saying though is that God is not a self-help book, He is not an improvement plan in your life, He is your life, it is life itself that is rooted in Christ Jesus. That is what matters, right? We don't go to the Father just when we want something, we go to the Father in all things. John 15, 5 says, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in I, in me, and I in him, he I don't know what that says. I apparently am not a great typer this week. Yes, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Not something. The answer is nothing. Now, here's the thing: you will go and produce things. Right? You're gonna do stuff. You're gonna walk up to people and you're gonna say, I'm a Christian, look at my fruit. And they're gonna take a bite of that fruit and it's gonna be rotten. It's gonna be shiny on the outside. I love bananas. It's actually the only fruit I'll eat, believe it or not. I will occasionally eat an apple, but it has to have so much salt on it that it's not good for you. I know, right? It's weird, but it's just how I am. Have you ever seen the perfect banana and then you peel it, and that thing is just nasty on the inside? And then people are like, I'm gonna make banana bread with that. That's disgusting. Let's throw that thing in the trash. It's got fruit flies on it, anyhow. When you peel back that beautiful banana peel and you see that rotten fruit, you know right away that that fruit is not good, right? And so when you show up and you you you're boasting about this fruit that you're producing, and it's big fruit, right? Because you go big, right? Because guess what? The devil goes big when he shows up, it's big and it's pretty and it's shiny, and on the outside it looks beautiful, and then you peel back that first layer. Because you know, ogres are like onions. Sorry, I don't know where that came from. Shrek reference for anybody that didn't get it. I apologize in advance, in advance for that. But you start to peel back that fruit and you realize very quickly that it's nasty rotten fruit, and the people around you realize that it's nasty rotten fruit, and now the kingdom of God is filled with nasty rotten fruit, right? Because when they look at you and you say, Well, I'm a Christian, I attend organic church, I go to tabletalk ministries, and my fruit is rotten. People have to ask, What are you learning? What are you consuming if that's the case? See, because we show up here and we get nothing from it. We make no meaningful change because Christ is still not the center of our lives. We are not so deep in love with Jesus that we're producing good fruit from him. Instead, we're producing worldly fruits that are just plain old gross. It's not little, it's not less, it is absolutely nothing. We cannot treat God like a spiritual supplement, right? Anybody take like vitamins? I remember Flintstone vitamins, they should make those for adults, by the way. Like, who doesn't want a Dino first thing in the morning? Right? Because, guys, if any of you guys take a multivitamin, they're nasty, right? They stink when you take them out of the bottle. Like, can we can do better? I know we can do better. I know we can do better. Anyhow, my point is you can't just have a little dash of Jesus whenever you're feeling like you need a little dash of Jesus, right? You can't sprinkle on a little church attendance and make life all better. You have to show up and show out. When I show up to church and I sit on the floor and I genuinely worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, I don't have to worry about that little sprinkle on Wednesday. Not that I mean we come to church on Wednesday to get refilled, but what I'm saying is I'm not reliant on that because on Monday afternoon and on Tuesday afternoon and on Thursday and on Friday, I am still getting filled from my cup and it's constantly overflowing. Now, do I have seasons where my cup feels like it's run dry? Yeah, absolutely. We're coming out of that season right now, and I'm thankful that God he was so gracious through that season, and he he just kept telling me we're almost there. Don't give up, we're almost there. And you know how many times I said, Lord, I just want to give up, right? You wake up, listen, on I don't get sick very often because I stay away from sick people because they're gross. And it's just gross. And you know, we there are some people in in public, it's wild, they'll just cough into the air, right? Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I'm spraying them down with Lysol as they walk by. But so I don't often get sick. Two days before Christmas Eve, start to get a scratchy throat, start to get a little bit of congestion, get a runny nose. I'm like, Lord, what is going on? I'm like, I need a break if I want to get over this. I can't keep running this hard. And he said, We're almost there. We're almost there. And I said, All right, Lord, we're gonna keep going. And I feel so much better, but it that that feeling better wasn't the symptoms are gone. That feeling better was I know I can do it because I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, right? I it's not about what I want to do, it's not about what my physical man can do, it is about what God can do through me. And that's why when I pray on Sunday mornings, Lord, let your will be done, not mine. Allow these words to speak to their ears. If they are not your words, Father, allow them to fall dead to the ground. And that's why most of you don't remember my Shrek reference in two or three days, right? Because God didn't say that, that was me. And sometimes I do that and it's funny, but that's not what God. God is calling us to absorb his word, right? Sometimes I gotta do that to catch you off guard to keep you awake, though. Some of y'all be nodding off. Jesus didn't just say to visit the vine, he said to abide. And abide means to stay, to remain, and to live connected to. Right? We should be constantly connected to the vine so that we can produce much good fruit. I want to remind you that as we're making our New Year's resolutions, as we're planning our 2026, listen, I've already got a 2026 calendar full. Right? We got basketball starting in January, that's two nights a week. Like, we're gonna be busy in my house, but I have to remind myself God is not asking me for my year. He's asked me for my life. He has asked me for my life. Romans 12 1. And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. He is asking you for your life. He is asking you to commit your life unto him. A living sacrifice isn't offered just once, it is laid down daily. Amen. That means when I wake up in the morning, Father, thank you for giving me breath. Thank you for allowing me to live your way and not mine, Father. He isn't asking you for your Monday mornings, he's asking for your private decisions, your hidden struggles, your future plans. And it's not about starting your year with God. It's about never doing life without him again. Make a commitment to being in relationship with him. Because being in relationship is so much easier than being committed to a single task, right? Because I will be walking through the store and remember, you know what? Lord, I was thinking about this person today, and Lord, I just want to pray for them right now. Lord, just you know, you know what they need, Father. You know all of the things. If you ever catch me in the store and I'm talking to myself, I'm not talking to myself. I'm usually praying for something that's happening in my life or something that's happening in somebody else's life, or mumbling under my breath because somebody just coughed into the open air. So it just depends. It's still usually Jesus. It's give me patience, don't give me strength. I don't want to go to prison. He wants your private decisions and he wants your hidden struggles. We need to learn to do life with Jesus every single day. I want to say this to you plainly, as plainly as I possibly can. If your faith depends on motivation, you will lose it. If your faith depends on motivation, it'll fade. Your faith has to depend on the one who can provide all the things. See, my faith in Jesus allows me to know that even in the worst of times, I have grace and I have mercy. Even in the worst of times, he is going to do great and mighty things in my life, right? This isn't about trying to figure out how I fix it. This isn't about figuring out how somebody else fixes it. This is figuring out that he is the source, he is the sustainer, and he is at the end of the day the center in all things. The center in all things. So what's gonna happen is our seasonal faith is about to flee. Right? Because that's what we're living in right now. Right? We don't want to admit it, I know that, but I admit it. You put the tree up, it's festive, it feels good. You come to candlelight service and it's beautiful, and we love everything that's happening in the season, and then the first of the year rolls around, and we have to go back to work, and all of the things in life start to kick back in, and all of a sudden that faith is gone. That belief in who Jesus is and what he's done in our lives, it's gone. See, oftentimes we used to stop talking about Jesus after the first of the year. We forget who he is and what he's done in our lives. Our worship should no longer be situational, right? We shouldn't be worshiping only on Sunday morning. We shouldn't be worshiping whenever. Listen, my wife used to have back in the day, folks, kids, there were these things called CDs. Remember those? For some of you really old folks, you guys will remember the eight-track. Yeah? Cassettes? Yeah, this is weird, it's old, right? Emmett doesn't know what a CD is. Other than the one that goes in his Xbox, right? And that's not even a CD, that's a Blu-ray. Just saying. We can't. My wife used to have a C D of kids' worship songs that she listened to. It was like 12 songs, and we listened to it and repeat in her car all the time. That was before satellite radio, and you couldn't listen to the message, right? K Love didn't exist. Listen to the same 12, I am a C, I am a C H I M A C H R I S T I A N. No. And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H E A R T and I will L I V E E T E R N A L L I M A C. I could just do that all day long. It's bizarre, but you just like it's ingrained in our children, right? It's the it's there's a difference in being able to have him as the center and as the sustainer. He is not just seasonal, he is part of our everyday life. Worship is not situational. I don't mean just music, I'm talking worship in general, being able to give him praise in all things. Obedience will no longer feel forced when Jesus is at the center. Obedience will no longer feel forced. This isn't just about trying harder, right? This year will not be just about trying harder, it will be about surrendering deeper. Saying, Lord, whatever it is that I'm holding on to, I need you to take it away from me. God, if I am holding on to this relationship or this friendship, or if I'm holding on to this um this broken past or this thing that somebody said to me once, being able to say, Lord, I need you to take that away from me. I want to continue to abide in you and grow in you so that my fruit can be good, healthy fruit. My favorite part about growing Christians, and this is how I look at you guys, I want to be clear. You guys remind me of the trees from The Wizard of Oz. Anybody ever seen that movie? And you start throwing apples, right? But I'm not looking at you quite like that, but I look at you through your fruit. And so I see people that I have poured into and I've loved on for all of these years, and people, some people that are brand new that you don't spend a lot of time with. And then I start to see their fruit. And the first piece of fruit that I see isn't real pretty and it's kind of rotten on the inside, and it's like, okay, they're producing fruit, but it's not great fruit. And then all of a sudden, they produce this tiny little piece of fruit. But when you inspect that fruit, it's good, it's clean, it's edible, it's healthy fruit, right? And then the fruit continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger. Where does that come from? Spiritual maturity, right? Because have you ever seen that? That my wife is a gardener, she loves flowers, and we grow these things called snap dragons. Anybody know what it is? They're beautiful flowers, but if you don't clip that snapdragon after the first bloom, it will never get big. It will always stay this little tiny plant, but you cut that first one and then it continues to grow, and the stalk gets about this thick on it, and they just get bigger and bigger and more beautiful every time they grow. And I think that's exactly what we're doing. We produce that small fruit, and when that small fruit falls, we begin to produce bigger fruit. And our attachment to our source begins to get bigger as we mature spiritually, and we can truly have a healthy, strong relationship with Christ. It comes through deeper surrender. We have to sacrifice that first bloom, and it's so hard to do because it's always pretty, right? It's so hard to cut that the head off of that first bloom. But when we do it, they continue to grow and get bigger and bigger. Because your relationship with God should not be a New Year's resolution. It should be the foundation that everything else stands on today. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you and I praise you for the blessing that is your word, Father. I thank you for sending the Holy Spirit before this message, Lord, that the ears would be prepared to hear, that our hearts would be prepared to absorb. Lord, I pray that you continue to lead us, guide us, and direct us. Father, allow us to surrender deeper in 2026, Father. Allow us to be in your word during this time of prayer and fasting, Lord. Allow us to find deeper relationship with you in this season. Father, we're moving from the season of birth into a season of waiting and then into a season of death. But Father, this is the sweetest place to be. Father, we wait for your move. We pray that you have your way in our lives, that you teach us something every day. Father, I thank you for your guidance and direction for this house. Lord, I thank you for the passage of Scripture that you have set us to stand on. Father, in 2026, the children will come unto you. Father, we know that without childlike faith, we will not come unto you. And so we are finding ourselves children today. Lord, I give you praise, honor, and glory for all that you've done, all that you're doing, and all that you will continue to do in our lives. In the mighty name of Jesus, and the church says, Amen. Love you guys. We'll see you Sunday.