God Has More For You I Pastor Kendrick Vinar

Have you ever wondered what God has in store for your 2026? Pastor Kendrick unpacks a powerful parable about a fig tree to reveal how God believes in you and has more planned than you can imagine. Through personal stories of ministry challenges and growth, he shows how God's transformative work requires both time and intentional effort—digging deep into our hearts while fertilizing our lives with truth. Whether you're facing addiction, feeling stuck, or even thriving, this message challenges us to "do less better" by pruning what's unproductive and focusing on eternal impact. Don't miss this timely word about discovering and developing your unique purpose in God's kingdom. Watch now to step into all God has for you this year!

📖 Key Scripture: Ephesians 3:20
🔔 Follow, Hit the Notification Bell, Leave a 5-Star review & share with someone who needs this encouragement!

Join us next week for another life-giving word from Grace Church of Chapel Hill!

Transcript

Hands together for Jesus. Come on, y'. All. Here we are, first weekend of the new year 2026, and I really hope and pray that you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Maybe some time to unplug with family and friends and.

And now here we are, just launching into the new year. Want to take a moment and greet everybody out at Alamance. Hey, Alamance, we love y'. All. Let's put our hands together for Alamance Campus.

One church, two locations. Y' all are the best and love doing life together. We had a great time on New Year's Day. We kicked off with our first day of 21 days of prayer and 20 days of fasting because we just had a good old. We had four food, drugs.

It was a big party, but so fun having our two campuses together. And God's really working at our Alamance campus in a big way. They're making an impact in that community, and it's just a. A lot of fun to see. Well, hey, y', all, I love the new year.

I don't know about y', all, but I love the new year. There's something about the fact that God. This is what I talk about this morning. God has something more for you and me and us. Like, God has more and, And.

And I know you can kind of go, well, same old, same old. It's another day, another weekend or whatever, you know, rewind and play. But let me tell you this. I really believe that there. There.

There's a time and a season for everything under the sun. And, And. And even with God's people in the Old Testament, the Israelites, they'd have festivals and times to celebrate and reflect back and give thanks to the Lord as well as to look forward and to get vision from God. And I believe that following Jesus is an adventure of faith. Like, wouldn't it be nice if you could just get it all on a spreadsheet and have it all figured out so that you knew exactly what to do?

And, like, this year would be like a piece of cake because we got it all figured out. But that doesn't work that way, does it? It doesn't work that way. There's an adventure in following Jesus, and it takes faith to trust him, that every day, every new season, every new year is an opportunity to trust God to keep growing, to. To say yes to him, to step out by faith, to turn in our plan for his plan, to say, lord, not my will, but your will be done in our life.

And I know it's kind of easy to get a Little cynical about change and New Year's resolutions and stuff like that, you know, like, well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And what you do know, only 10% of New Year's resolutions, people follow through on them. I'm like, great, well then make 10 New Year's resolutions and one of them is going to work, you know. You know, just like I've got one out of ten that's not terrible, you know, Anyway, let me just say this. I want to encourage you to avoid cynicism and rather be filled with faith, right?

That, that, that with God you can change, you can grow. He's working, he's doing new things. And I want to say, I believe in you, I'm praying for you. And I'm praying that God would continue to work us in us and through us. And I believe 2026, not just a cute phrase, can be our best year ever for each one of us, if it's our best year ever spiritually.

Because I don't know what's gonna happen in the natural twists and turns and ups and downs and health and family and, you know, job in the world and all that, who knows? But I do know this, that if you walk closely with God, if you know God better, if you love him more deeply, if you trust him more, if you dive into his word and fill his heart and experience a deep, rich spiritual life with God, everything flows from that. Everything flows. And that's really what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to walk with him, to know him, to have your spiritual roots go deep in, in order that your heart would be refreshed and he would lead you and guide you. In fact, we're gonna start next weekend.

We're kicking off an eight week series. We're gonna do six weeks with small groups, eight week, eight Sunday sermon messages, and we're gonna talk about this super fancy hip, cool title, Disciple, which I love this because, like, we're running straight at the middle. What does it mean to be a disciple? Cause let me just tell you this for all of us. I don't care if you've been trying to figure this whole Jesus thing out, been walking with the Lord for 50 years, whatever, wherever you're at in your journey, it all comes down to being a disciple, a follower.

And we're gonna walk through a bunch of titles like we're talking about. Jesus says, follow me. What does that look like? He says, be with me. How do we abide in him and be with him?

He says, grow with me. How can we continue to grow with Jesus in our new year. He says, hear me. I really believe you can hear the leadership of God in your life and know his direction and know his plan for your life. How do you discover and hear his personal plan for you?

He says, rest in me.

How do you rest in God? That's part of the invitation. He says, trust me. We're gonna talk one week all about trust and how do we trust him? And when we step out and he says, enjoy me.

And how do you have a relationship where you truly love God and enjoy God? We're gonna dive in. And all those. What we're gonna do on Sunday mornings and then on our small groups. We're gonna do six weeks of small groups.

Because let me tell you this. Your spiritual life is dependent on two things. One, your vertical relationship with the Lord. But also it's horizontal in your relationship with people. And your destiny is tied to your relationships.

And you are meant to be planted in a community with people. We're gonna talk about that because your relationships really matter to the quality of your life, of your influence, of your impact, of your spiritual growth. And so the. The. The small group curriculum and content is gonna be completely different than it will be what we're doing on Sunday mornings.

And I wanna invite you to dive in, to participate, to start this year and say, hey, I wanna be a disciple. We actually have a field guide for you. We'll be giving these out next weekend for you. And it's gonna follow along with our Sunday mornings as well as with our small group curriculum and material. And so I'm really excited for this.

I think it's gonna be a great opportunity to dive in. I wanna read a promise for you for 2026. Y' all wanna hear a little something about 2026 for you. All right. Here's a promise from God's word.

Ephesians 3. 20. Here's 20:26. Now. To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

I love that to him, God can do more in 2026 than you could ever do. And whatever you can do, you know how much more he can do? Not 50%, not 100% more. I love this. He can do immeasurably more.

Like you can't even measure it. It's so much more. More than you could ask. I can ask pretty good, you know, like ask big or more than you can imagine. You haven't even thought about it.

According to his power. That's the key, y'. All. His power at work within us. First Corinthians says this similarly, and this is true for your year 2026.

Here. This is something that's true. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him. I love that. I mean, think about this again for your 2026, and you may have some plans, you know, we might go on vacation or.

I got job or work, whatever. Let me see. Let me tell you this. At the end of the day, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has even imagined what God has prepared for you to in 2026. That's an incredible thought to me.

That's an amazing thought. That God has a purpose and a plan for you in 2026, that you have never. It's never even crossed your mind. You haven't even thought of it before. No eye has seen it, no ear has heard it.

What does God have in store? I don't know. But I'm believing God. And I'm praying for you that you're going to experience the plan that God has, because you can do your plan or his plan. I pray that you'd experience his plan, his power, his peace, his direction, his work in your heart and life, that God has something for you.

And I'm praying for Grace Church, for our spiritual family, that there'll be more people coming to Christ, more people water baptized, more people connected, more people growing spiritually, more people free in their walk with the Lord, more people stepping into leadership, discovering their destiny and calling. Now, how are we gonna do that? What I wanna do is this. Today I'm gonna launch from and we're gonna read a short parable that Jesus told. Now, I like this parable because at times I think we can read the Bible or read even the teachings of Jesus.

And we can read it with a negative lens. You know, have y' all ever done that before where you read, like, the Proverbs? The proverbs says, blessed are the righteous, for they will flourish, but the wicked will be crushed. And like, oh, God, you're gonna crush me. You know, And I think God's up there, like, going, jesus, I love you.

You know, like, like. And we want to hear the warnings of God. 100% true. But why? I want us to look into this, this parable that could be seen through a negative lens.

And I think we can try to really get, truly get God's message to us. And we can be inspired, maybe challenged A little bit to really experience all that God has for us in 2026. Does that sound good, y'? All? Here we go.

Luke, chapter 13, verse 6. How are we gonna experience all that God has for us in 2026? Well, Jesus told this parable, a man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So there's a man, he's got a vineyard, and he plants a fig tree, and he comes out to check on his fig tree, but there's no figs on the fig tree. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard for three years now, three years in a row, I've been coming out to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any.

Cut it down. Why should it use up the soil, sir? The man replied, leave it alone for one more year and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. Catch those two things. I'll dig around it, I'll fertilize it.

If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, then cut it down. What can we learn from this interesting, unique parable? That's the whole parable, y'. All.

Like if you read before, after. That's the whole thing right there. And here's the first thing that I really believe God is saying to us in this, is this God believes in you. Y' all know that God believes in you. The man comes to inspect his fig tree.

He went to look for figs for good fruit on his fig tree. When he doesn't find any, he tells the manager of the vineyard to cut it down. Let me tell you this. God expects fruit in your life because he believes in you. He made you.

And I love it. It's kind of an interesting thought. God doesn't just desire fruit in your life personally. He doesn't just plan for fruit in your life personally. He believes in you so much that he expects fruit.

And part of that is this, is that God created you in his image. He made you with a unique gifting and calling. You're made in his image, but y' all know there's nobody else like you on planet Earth ever created ever. Like God's purpose, God plan for you is unique. Now, let me tell you this.

You can learn from other people. You can grow from, you know, other people. You can look at models and examples. I'm a big believer in that. But let me say this.

At the end of the day, there is only one you. No one's had your path before, no one will have your path again. Your unique calling of the fruit that God wants to produce in your life is unlike anybody else. And without you, something significant is missing on planet Earth.

That's kind of a big deal. Like, can I say it in. Like, you're kind of a big deal. We don't ever think about that. Ah, no, not me.

I'm just, you know. You know, it's just little me. No, no, no. Oh, there's only one you. And God has a purpose and a plan for your life that's significant.

Your life is meant to bear fruit. That would be a display of who God is and his grace and his goodness and his plan and his purpose is unique to flow through you. And I understand. I think at times you can think about, oh, my gosh, God expects good fruit from my life. And we can kind of, like, wilt under the expectation of that.

But. But I think we have a tendency to do one of two things. One, we can be too hard on ourselves. Have y' all ever been too hard on yourself? You know where you go, oh, there's no good fruit in my life, and I'm not measuring up, and nothing's changing, and nothing's good's happening.

Okay, Let me tell you that often when we're saying that something good actually is happening. Let me give you a thought. We're not the best at judging how much good fruit we have in our lives. Fruit grows slowly. And even the apostle Paul, he says this.

He goes, I don't even judge myself. Like, I'm all in. As far as I know, I'm good. Like, I'm going all in. He goes, but at the end of the day, I don't even judge myself.

I'm gonna leave that up to the Lord. I'm just doing the best that I can. Because I think it's fascinating. What he's basically saying is, I'm not really the judge at the end of the day. And I don't think we should sit and try to judge ourselves.

And if you're being hard on yourself, you're probably. Let me tell you this, you're not judging yourself. Well, like, we're not real good at it. We think we're good at it. And then what we do is we tend to waffle from one side of either being too hard on ourselves or there's another side where you can be too easy on yourself in the sense that we don't keep growing, we stay comfortable.

We don't allow God to prune us to grow us to Challenge us to change us. We don't stretch, we don't believe. We settle into what's known. We play it safe. And I'm going to do whatever I can do in my own strength.

And I'm just kind of good with that, you see? And I believe the fact that God expects fruit from us is because God believes in you. And there's this healthy thing up the middle where God began a good work in you. Come on, y', all, man. God began a good work in you and he will bring it to completion.

He's not done with you yet, like until the day of Christ Jesus, until he comes back, he's gonna keep growing you, he's gonna keep changing you. He's gonna keep working in you. God knows the plans that he has for you, plans to prosper you, to give you a future and a hope. And you don't know him, you just don't know them. Your eye isn't seen, your ear hasn't heard them all.

Your mind has not imagined them. God's got a purpose. And let me tell you all this. We tend to put self imposed limitations limiting beliefs.

And I think this your own head, voices from your past, voices from the world, voices from critics. Let me just tell you this. If I could blow something up today would be all those self imposed, negative, limiting beliefs and thoughts that we have, y', all, we all have got them. I'm not much of a leader. I can't really be a public speaker.

I'm not that influential at work. Nobody knows me in my neighborhood. What difference can I make? I'm at a big school. I'm just one little person.

I'm weak, I'm lonely, I'm insecure. I got my own issues. I'm not good with money. I'm not healthy, I'm not strong, I'm not. Courtney, let me just tell you this.

We end up defining what we think we can do, should do instead of allowing God who planted us and made us, and if I could give you a gift, it'd be like this. Just blow up all the limiting, wrong thinking that we have because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against this thinking in our head that causes us to try to stay in a spot that isn't all that God has for us. And it doesn't produce the good fruit and the work that God wants to do in our life. And the truth is this, you are stewarding God given talents, resources, history, experiences. God sees what you don't see.

God sees your heart. God sees your life. God Sees your future. God sees what he can do through you. Can I give you like a good math.

I always used to be a math teacher. You with all the good, the bad, the ugly and all the middle plus God equals far beyond all that we could ask or think. See, we just look at me plus and we get this limited squash boxed in thing and. And I want to speak faith to you that God, who began a good work inside of you will bring it to completion. He's going to change you, he's going to transform you, and he's going to keep working through.

In fact, two good questions that I would encourage you to be asking yourself at the beginning of this year is Lord number one, what do you want to do in me? What do you want to do in me? God, who began a good work in you, is going to continue to change you and transform you until the day that Jesus Christ comes back. And one of the healthiest things you can do is continue to grow and change internally. God wants you to become more like Christ in your heart and in your character.

He wants your spiritual life to be richer, deeper, your heart to be healthier. The negative, the wrong thinking, the discouragement, the drain. He wants less of that. He wants that out. And he wants to pour in his love and his grace and his kindness.

He wants you internally healthier and stronger. God, what do you want to do in me? And then two God, what do you want to do through me? What do you want to do through me? Let me tell you this.

There is a purpose and a plan for your life in 2026. God wants to work through you. You are the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world, your hope for somebody, your strength for somebody. Your prayers matter, your serving matters, your family, your friends, your small group like people need you.

You're an answer to prayer way more than you realize. God's going to use your wisdom, your experience, your leadership, and you can speak that to somebody. There's something that will try to hold us down. But I just want to tell you this. Discover your God given purpose in 2026.

God believes in you. I believe in you. I love you. I think this. What if everyone at Grace Church, everyone in Adam was always together?

We all got together. We just said like, hey, I'm stepping into what God has for me and I'm gonna discover what God has for me. There's good fruit of what he wants to do in me and good fruit what he wants to do through me. God believes in you. Here's a second Thought is this.

Good fruit takes time and hard work. That's what this verse says. Good fruit in your life takes time and hard work. You all know me. I don't even talk about hard work.

I'm like the grace of God. Kendra, baby, okay, but we gotta look at the word. We gotta look at how God really works in our lives. It takes time and some hard work. What does the verse say?

The manager says, leave it alone for one more year. It already had been three years. He says, leave it alone for one more year. A fourth year, I'll dig around it and fertilize it. That's hard work.

I'm gonna dig around it and I'm gonna fertilize. Let's talk about that. First of all, growing good fruit takes time. My wife, several years ago had tried to get a fig tree, like, just like this story, you know, and she loves figs. And so I got determined.

It was probably, you know, six, seven years ago, whatever. It was a good while ago. I said, I'm determined. I'm gonna get my wife figs. So I went.

I didn't buy one fig tree. I went out and bought, like, four of them, you know. And I just started planting them around, you know. And I got one in the right spot, baby. Like, right where the water runs off.

And it's got some good soil. And that thing is just now, what, seven years later, it's just massive. And she was out there this weekend trimming it. And I gotta go and help prune it, you know, now. And so she actually took these cuttings.

Cause she had to trim it. And she puts them into a pot. And she's got 12, like, stuck in a pot. And she's going to grow them into seedlings. And then in the spring, she'll plant them.

But now, y', all, you think about this. She stuck them in a pot this weekend. They're going to grow this winter. With a little grow light, she'll plant them in the spring. It'll be at least three to five years before you see any figs.

You gotta have a vision for down the road. And it's interesting that Jesus said three years. You know, like in this parable that the owner came for three years. He said, hey, give me one more year. And here's the point.

It just takes time to grow good fruit. In our lives, we tend to get impatient. Spiritual growth takes time, right? You go like, hey, I've been reading my Bible for two weeks. Why isn't my life changed?

I went to the gym three Times what's going on, you know, like why you didn't get there overnight either. Okay. Spiritual growth takes time. We can be hard on ourselves, expecting immediate results. The gardener does it says, let me dig around it and fertilize.

Let's talk about those things. See, digging around it is this. He's gonna, the soil is what matters. And he's gonna dig into the soil and get the soil healthy. Now, Jesus told a story once, a parable about a farmer who went out to sow seeds.

And the whole parable was about four different soils that the seed lands on at the end of it. The whole point was this. It's the same seed, it's the same word of God. The difference is the soil. There could be good soil, hard soil, thorny soil.

You know, the birds can come and steal the word of God from the seeds. And at the end of the day, let me just tell you this, if there's one thing that you could do, it would be tend to the soil of your heart. Dig it, fertilize it. Dig up the hardness, the attitudes, the well worn patterns, the hurt, the, the negative. Like there's some mixture, maybe some rocks and sticks in there.

And it's not all just good soil. And sometimes God has to dig it up and soften our hard hearts and break up the fallow ground. It actually said in Hosea, break up the hard spot, dig deep into your heart and let God do something and then fertilize it. Fertilization is when you put what's lacking into the soil, the nutrients it needs, the positive, you start pouring in the good. Whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever's right.

Think on these things and you go, okay, hey, I'm gonna discover the purpose of God, the plan of God. He's got some. But now I gotta develop it. I discovered, but I gotta develop it. And it's gonna take some time and it's gonna take some digging up.

And we think we could just discover our gifting and then it should just sort of happen, right? Like I got clear, like I was supposed to be a pastor. I remember about a year after I gave my life to the Lord, I go, oh, this will be great. You know, and you discover your purpose and you don't realize, like God's like, here's the deal, no matter what you're called to, if you're gonna be significant, make an impact between you and what God's called you to do, you know what's gonna happen? Failure, heartache, difficulty, misunderstandings, getting criticized, breakdown, hurt, Feelings want to hit the eject button.

Mess up. Like, it all happens, y', all, to all of us in any area. And I tell you, I was started thinking about I was gonna sit and I could sit and tell stories. Like, I. Now they're funny.

At the time, they were not funny. But I, you know, I started a young adults ministry at my previous church. And I was so excited. I gathered a leadership team, we had meetings. I launched a young adults ministry that had 0.0 attendees.

Literally nobody. Like, it was the biggest failure ever. I got very self conscious, you know, like, Lord, I don't know if I'm called to be a leader. John Piper says that if you're leading and no one's following, you're just going out for a walk. And I'm like, I'm out for a walk all by myself, you know?

And then they put me in with the student ministries, and I was kind of the number two person at this church. And I thought, like, oh, they'll be so glad I'm here, you know, and it was difficult. They were not glad I was there. And it was painful. There's some misunderstandings and, like, leadership and like, some of the most painful things that I've gone through in kind of ministry church, like, happened in that season of my life.

And it was hard. Like, two of my good friends, I begged and pleaded with them, don't hit the eject button. They both did. I was tempted to. I'm hurt, I'm mad, I'm right, you're wrong.

I mean, it was real, it was raw.

And I'm like, I could just, like, there's other ways that are more profitable being miserable than doing what I was doing. Like, you know, like, this is. I'm not making enough money to be this miserable, you know, And I wanted to hit the eject button. And let me just tell you this. It wasn't about them.

It was about me. You know, what God was doing. He was digging and fertilizing. I could sit and blame and finger point. I could.

I could to this day, tell you every reason why I was right. It wasn't about that, y'. All. God was working on me. God was changing me.

He did it to David, he did it to Joseph. And we could go on and on Bible characters that God used some tough stuff. And I'm telling you, it's so easy when we go through the challenge, the tough situation, the wrong situation, when we get hurt, when we get misunderstood, when we get criticized, when we get whatever, whatever that person wasn't there for us. That company didn't. Whatever that friend, whatever the family melted down, whatever it might be.

Let me tell you this. It's so easy to blame and finger point, but you will never blame your way to a better future. And blame enables us to smuggle our issues into our future. And I really like Lord, if I blame and finger point and think I'm right and they're wrong and I don't allow you to dig into me because let me tell you this, at the end of the day, the Lord was trying to get at my pride. I was just proud.

And I knew what was right and wrong. He was getting at my attitude towards authority. And sometimes we end up with an attitude towards authority, towards leaders, towards our boss. He or she was wrong. We end up with an attitude towards men, towards church and organized religion.

We end up with an attitude towards our family, extended family. We start seeing everything through that lens. And we can be really good at pointing the finger and explaining why they were wrong. And it doesn't allow us to be changed and transformed. Let me tell you this because I love you so much.

I want you to win. Allow the Lord to dig and fertilize and pour in the good and keep growing and keep changing and keeping allowing transformation to happen in your heart. God was molding me the whole time. You've got to be willing to do your part to get better, to grow. Lord, dig in me, fertilize me, change me.

Now, if I may speak just for a couple moments before I move on to a few groups of people as your pastor, just as I was praying this week and I got. I was. I had my notes done and I kind of went back and.

And I just realized there's three groups of people I wanted to briefly speak to. And I'll just say this. Here's the first group. If, as we're heading into the new year, you know you're struggling with an addiction, I just want to speak to you for a moment. On Thursday, we had our kickoff to our 21 days of prayer.

And it was just really on my heart. On Thursday night, I spoke about the gift of desperation. It's actually a phrase used by the recovery community, the gift of desperation. You know what the gift of desperation is? When you give up the illusion that you're in control.

It's just an illusion in the first place. But I wanna speak to you. My heart is so for you. And let me just say this, all three of these groups, we've all been in all three of these spots, so so don't sit and look down the road and go, it's all of us at some point or we struggle with something, a bad habit, some kind of an addiction. And I want to tell you this.

The gift of desperation is giving up the illusion that I'm in control. I got this. It's not too bad. I'm not too bad. It'll get better.

I got this.

We think we're in control. And if we're dead honest, if you're brutally honest with yourself, if you've. If you could have changed, you would have changed, but you haven't, so you won't. And I'm not trying to be negative or not like, lacking faith. The only thing that I, like, lack faith is in.

Is your ability to fix yourself. The gift of desperation is when we're desperate enough to realize that this thing is bigger than I am. And I need God and I need someone else in this with me. I got to let somebody else in. And I need God to help me change.

I need God. And here's the question. Let me just really encourage you with this question. How low do you need to go before you're given the gift of desperation? If I can encourage you, that's your choice.

It's up to you. I don't know. I always say a prayer, Lord, I don't need to learn the hard way. I don't think everybody heard someone pray, I'm gonna just learn whatever it takes. Give it to me the hard way.

I'm like, no, give it to me the easy way. I'll be coachable, teachable, Lord, you know, And I don't, you know, like, I mean, life is tough enough. I don't need to pray and more trouble in my life, you know? And let me just say this. You can pray and ask the Lord for a gift of desperation at any point, if you're brutally honest and say, lord, I'm struggling.

I've gotten into a bad habit. I've gotten into a bad rhythm here. I need you to help me.

And I just want to tell you by faith, God can totally help you. You don't have to hit rock bottom. You can make your bottom today and go, you know what? I'm asking the Lord for a gift of desperation. And I'm going to trust him and I'm going to let somebody in, and I'm going to see the Lord bring breakthrough in my life.

Because if you keep up with the illusion that it's not too bad and you got this, it's just going to take A while.

And I'm trying to save you and me the heartache of, like, you can get help. Ask somebody in. Maybe today was the day God said, hey, I want to help you break that addiction. Ask for the gift of desperation. I can help you.

Let me speak to one other group. Second group is those of you who feel stuck in some area of your life. You just feel stuck. And honestly, you don't have a lot of hope because you've been stuck there for. Maybe you feel stuck in your marriage and you go, like, our marriage is stuck.

Like, we're married but we aren't communicating great. We got some walls up. Sex life isn't that great. We're not doing that well. And you feel stuck.

Maybe you feel stuck without marriage, looking for a mate. Maybe you feel stuck internally and you feel like you've been just struggling emotionally internally, feeling lonely, depressed, overwhelmed, anxious. Maybe you feel stuck in your finances. You know, like, I just feel stuck. Maybe you feel stuck in your health and you go, like, my health, my habits, my choices are not great.

I know it. I should change. Maybe feel stuck at a job that you don't like. You go, like, I feel stuck. I feel stuck.

Let me speak a word of encouragement to you. Your situation may feel hopeless, but with what? With. With people, what's impossible with God, all things are possible. And I'm telling you this, God will set us all up so that we need him and he'll lead us to a place that we're stuck without him in order that we would trust him and he could glorify himself and he could show that, that in our weakness he can be strong and that we can't just figure it out, suck it up, dig deeper like, grit it out like.

And I'm all for getting after it. But let me tell you, God will set us up so that we cannot do it in our own soul strength. And sometimes when we're stuck, God says, hey, hey, I just want you to lift up your eyes and look to heaven. Look to me. Look to me.

Now, super practically, if you're stuck and feeling hopeless, what should you do? What could you do? Let me tell you this, I'd do this if I were you. Dig and fertilize.

Dig and fertilize. Let me say this. When you're stuck in a painful, difficult, maybe hopeless situation, it gets really hard to dig in. A sense of looking inward to see how I should grow and change. When my job stinks, when my spouse is driving me crazy, when my kids are this, when my relatives Are this when my life is this, when my finances are this, when my health is this.

Like, it's just hard to allow the Lord to. To search us and grow. But let me just super encourage you. Do what you can do in the natural and let God do the supernatural. Even in the middle of that hopeless situation, like, you have some fresh faith, like, here we go.

All right. And believe that you can do in the natural. Like, just step out and do it. Like, I don't know if it's gonna work. You say, I've already tried it.

I've already applied for it. Go apply for some jobs. I don't know, like, learn some AI skills. Like, get out there, Just start doing something. Work harder, be on time.

Return all your emails within 24 hours. Try that. Okay, that'll help. Okay. If you're a guy, take a shower.

Don't smell. Dress up just a little bit. Okay. Look good. Good.

You. Okay, here's my point. Do what you can do in the natural. Let the Lord help you grow, and then trust God for the supernatural. Trust God for the supernatural.

Fruit doesn't happen by accident. It happens by attention and intentionally. Let me speak to one last group. What if you're doing well and you're in a good season? It's like, you're in a good season.

I mean, there's always challenges, but you're like, I'm in a pretty good season. I'll be honest. Like, we had just a great year at great church, you know, 20, 25, and I could go on and give you all the stats. The numbers are really encouraging. I feel like, you know, like, I'm 59, just turned 59.

I'm an old fart now, you know, And. And it's just a good season. And what. What I would like to do in the natural is, like, take it easy, coast, rest on my laurels, kick back, and just coast for a while. And the Lord just made it so clear to me.

He gave me this word, you know, each year. And, you know, some of you do this. I know. And if you haven't, you consider. But I asked the Lord, could you give me a word or a thought as a theme for the year of what you want to do?

And the word that came to me was two words. A phrase was step up. Like, I so feel the Lord calling me to step up personally. Like, in my reading, I'm stepping up in my growth. I'm stepping up in my journaling, in my writing.

Like, I'm stepping up in my family. I'm stepping up to believe for some breakthroughs and for God to do some things honestly, for a whole theme for the church and for our staff. We're making some changes and adjustments and there's several people that are taking significant steps up in their roles and what they're doing. And I just. And let me tell you this, if you're in a good place, I want to encourage you.

God's got more. God did not bless you. And I talked about in the natural what I would want to do. But to be honest, at the end of the day, I absolutely hate that thought. The idea of just coasting along in same old same, O, yes, it feels good, maybe to your flesh, but in the spirit, like, I want to keep making a difference.

I want to keep growing. We either keep growing, and let me tell you this, we never outgrow it. We never outgrow. We keep having to grow and change and be transformed. And I get inspired by people that are older than me, that are ahead of me.

My father in law, I talked to him yesterday, he's 85 years old, turned 85 last week. He goes, well, talked to me yesterday. I said, well, what's up? You know, what's new? Give me the update.

Well, you know, I'm just more and more in love with my wife and the ministry that's happening. I had breakfast this morning with so and so and da, da, da, da, we got a plan. And then this afternoon, I meet with the colonel in the army and da, da, da, da. And like, oh, my gosh, Jerry, I said, you inspire me. You just keep growing, you keep learning, you keep serving.

What are you doing in me? What do you wanna do through me? I wanna. If you're in a good place, God blessed you to do something. It kind of ties into this last point.

Here's the last point. Do less better. Do less better. I think this is exactly what the scripture is saying. Prune back the things that aren't productive or fruitful.

Do less better. That's what, you know, it says. If it bears fruit next year, fine, great. But if not, then cut it out. And I just wanna say for most of us, I'll put myself at the front line.

We're a whole lot better at adding things than we are subtracting things. Like, you know, the whole concept that if you're gonna add something, what are you gonna subtract? Like in your time, I'm gonna add this into my schedule. What are you gonna subtract? I don't subtract anything.

I just add it all in, you know, because I think I can do it all. Just pile it on, baby, add more and I'll do this. And you know, like, I do it in my personal. I do it in ministry. I like, we'll take.

And the truth is that doesn't really work. That doesn't really work, does it? In order for us to be most fruitful, let me tell you this, it's very important for you to be most fruitful and fulfill your God given plan and destiny to. You're gonna have to get good at saying no to the good in order to do the best. You're gonna have more options, more opportunities, more hobbies, more good things to do than the best.

Jesus said, I'm the true vine. My father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. I love that God will prune us. Let me just say this.

We need to prune our own lives of things that are not as productive, as fruitful, as eternal. Like, here's my question for you. What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want your legacy to be?

What do you want people to say about you at the end of your life like, or this way, when you step into heaven, what do you want your reward to be?

It's a challenging question. Like when I got sick with cancer. Best lesson I learned, I learned from my wife. And she said this, Kendrick, right after we found out, she said, in one moment, everything in life that matters most becomes crystal clear.

And I believe this. When you and I step into heaven in one moment, this is the ultimate one moment, everything in life that matters most will be crystal clear.

No one is going to care about your golf handicap, Kendrick.

I love the golf. I enjoy golfing. I like to work out, I like to go hunting, whatever. Like the good things, I believe in them. Let me tell you this.

We've got to be take a good, hard, honest look, do less better. And what should you and I be pruning in order to bear the most eternal fruit? That when we get to heaven, God's going to say, well done, good and faithful servant. And that's. There's not one easy question, you know, like, I give about $25 a year to pheasants Forever for habitat.

I believe that, like, we should be good stewards of the earth, you know, and they work on habitat and you know, it's, it's great. I give a whole lot more to dig wells for Clean, safe drinking water for people that don't have it in order that churches could be planted and people could come to Christ.

Right? I give a whole lot more to seeing people. Like, I want what I do to show up in heaven. I love good habitat for pheasants, but I care more about, like, eternity. And what I'm saying is this, for all of us is your life matters.

There's a God purpose. There's an eternal purpose. And I want you and I to not waste our lives, but to invest in that which is eternal and lasting, that we would get done. And you're well done, good and faithful servant. And I'm like, grow a garden.

Go play some golf, whatever you enjoy. You know, like, I love it. I love it. It's. It's healthy, part of the cycle.

But let me tell you this. You will be tempted to spend too much time on lesser things and not invest in the best. When we got to get out, wham. Like, I got. I got some pruning shears at my house.

I love them. I mean, those things, like, wham. I can just, like, cut stuff like, you want to be Wham. I go around our property, Whammy. Wham.

You just got to go wham. And cut some stuff out. Y' all do less better. Invest less in the temporal, more in the eternal, invest less in worldly success and more in relationships and people and things that are going to show up in heaven.

You're very kind.

Can we pray together? I'm so excited for us because I've got this faith that if we all said yes to God on this, wouldn't it be exciting to be part of a spiritual family and a community that's like, oh, we're going all in for Jesus. We're going all in for the eternal. We want to make a difference. We want to grow and let God work in us.

And we want to see God work through us. Lord, we thank you today for this new year. And, Lord, we believe that you know the plans you have for us. Eye has not seen ear has not heard, mind has not imagined all that you have planned for us. We just want to say today we're an open book, Lord.

We want to have open hands, open hearts. We want to take a moment and even right now, lay down our own preferences, our own thoughts, our own plans. We might be in a perfect place and just the right job or whatever, but, Lord, we just want to hold it loosely and say, lord, not my will, but your will be done. We know that you've got new things. You want to stretch us, grow us, you want to work in us.

I pray that you would dig into our hearts and you would fertilize. You'd add the good, whatever is pure. Lovely, right? Think on these things, Lord, that we could pour into our lives your word, worship relationships. We'd listen to podcasts, be inspired, whatever it might be, Lord, to help us grow, fertilize us, Lord.

But I want to pray for anyone here today that maybe you're sitting here on the first Sunday of 2026 and you would say, pastor Kenner, to be honest, I've been living for myself. I've not truly lived for God. I mean, I believe in God in my head and I pray to God and ask him to help me, but I haven't surrendered. I haven't given my life to Jesus Christ and turned over the steering wheel to say, you take the wheel, you drive, you lead me, Lord. I want to just say, what a day today, what a great Sunday it would be to say, I'm going to dedicate my life to Jesus Christ.

I'm going to start this year by putting God in his first place and just say, hey, Lord, take my heart, take my life. I give it to you. Forgive me for going my own way. I want to start afresh today, Lord. I pray that this year, by the grace of God, would truly be our best year year ever.

That we would see you do things that we never imagined possible. Because with God, Lord, all things are possible. And you would show off and display your glory working in us and through us. Lord, remove the limiting beliefs, the negative thinking, in order that we'd have eyes to see and ears to hear all that you have for us. And may we experience this together as a spiritual family.

In Jesus name, amen.