Rooted In Remaining | Rodrigo Vargas

What's good, Houston, Texas? Let me hear you out there. It's good to be back in the house of God this week. Amen. We're in week four of greater. We are talking about greater faith, greater hope, greater joy, greater love. And if you're here today for the very first time, we want to welcome you want you to say that we want to tell you that you aren't here by coincidence or happenstance so that we see you not only as a guest but an answered prayer. We want you to know that Union Houston exists to connect people to God with the gospel of Jesus and that gospel says that it doesn't matter what your past looks like doesn't matter what you're presently struggling with doesn't matter what your doubts may weigh in your heart. Jesus loves you right where you are and he loves you too much to leave you where you are. Amen. This also includes every person that's incarcerated. Can you help me? Welcome every man and woman watching from our Union Prison Campus to the Pando app. Hey, you hear that? Come on now church. Hey, they can't see you but they love you and we can't wait for you guys to walk in through those doors. Listen, we've been talking about greater greater isn't about trying harder y'all. It's about becoming who God is shaping us to be.

He never stops. Okay, as Christ increases in us maturity happens our faith matures mature fruit grows. This series is about moving from believing to becoming from faith to fruit from information to transformation and that's our vision here at Union Houston. If you're new a couple of weeks ago, I learned we learned together that religion tests but relationship trusts and here's the crucial truth for today. We've already talked about response now. It's time to talk about results. How many of y'all want some results in 2026? Amen. Jesus calls us into a loving and trusting relationship. It's the only way to live as a disciple of Jesus. It's the only way greater faith isn't evident by what we know about Jesus but by the results of our response. That's what today we're going to be talking about. What are the results of our response? If you have repented of your sins and surrendered your life to Jesus as Savior Lord and King. Can I tell you something? I came to give you some good news today. If that's you, you are the church. Not the building. Not the name. Not the cool logo. Not not not what we've made it in America. Right where you got to be a cool church. You're cool because you're authentic.

Because you preach the word authentically, unwatered, unfiltered and because you invite the present. That's what makes cool in the kingdom of God. Not how vibey you are, not how cool we dress, not how music sounds, not how big we are because the word church originally is Ecclesia. Let me tell you what that means. It's not a biblical term. It's that it's never written in the Old Testament. It's a political term and it literally means Ecclesia in Greek means the called out ones. Can I tell you you've been called out of darkness and brought into marvelous light and into the kingdom of God and to be a church, a people that carry the gospel. That matters because what we talk about today directly applies to how you live, how you love and how you lead your life. We're going straight to scripture immediately out of the words Jesus gave us in John chapter 15. So would you stand with me in honor of the reading of the word of God beginning at verse 1 in which Jesus says and proclaims and declares. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. There is a cold hard truth there that we are cut off from God when we bear no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit he prunes. He's gonna cut things off of you. He's gonna cut off relationships. He's gonna cut off habits. He's gonna cut off attitudes. He's gonna cut you in ways that might hurt you. But this is why it's for because the word prune in the Greek is cleans. In order so that it will be even more fruitful. He wants you to be fruitful. He wants you to be blessed. He

wants you to go higher. He wants you to be promoted. He wants you to be anointed. He wants you to live your purpose y'all. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me as I also remain in you. That key sentence will be a key teaching today. No branch can bear fruit by itself. Lone Rangers, those that think they don't need the church. Those that think they can do church on their own. Here is the truth. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit. Showing yourselves to be my disciples. Let's pray. Father God we thank you. Thank you that you honor your son our Lord Savior and King Jesus's words and declarations for us that have been called out. Today Holy Spirit I need you to open all of our minds and open all of our ears and soften our hearts. Open our eyes to see the revelation of this passage and what you're calling us to do. Today is a day where we shift. Today is a day where we step into the new. Today we're walking in. We've prepared the ground of greater. Now we're stepping into greater and so Holy Spirit I'm gonna need you to minister, to teach, to proclaim, to convict, to rebuke, to remove and most importantly to edify this church because avivamiento is here. Holy Spirit do what you want with this service. I know I have a clock but I'm on your time today Lord. Be with us. I remove myself and you do what you want with your people and I pray this in Jesus mighty name and the church said amen. For those of you that weren't here on worship night you missed out but avivamiento means revival. It just has more meaning in Spanish so I'm gonna introduce you to revival has been worn out by the Western Church. They call anything revival but avivamiento. It's got some some power behind it. It's got

sustenance. It's got sustaining power. It's the awakening of all dead things. Today I want to talk to you about being rooted in remaining. You'll see all of our hosts have today greater disciples are rooted. So I want to talk to you about what it means to be rooted in remaining. Jesus says remain in me. Some translations say abide right but the Greek word is what matters because the Greek word that is used is meno and this is important because this is not a passive word. This is not a mystical word. It is not a poetic word. It is not a prophetic word nor is it a vague word. It is a relational and continuous and decisively intentional word. Remaining requires a decision. Jesus is speaking to a agricultural people in agricultural language that his audience would have automatically understood what I'm about to tell you. Faith is not produced by your efforts, it's produced by remaining, by being rooted. A seed, watch this, a seed must go into the ground, that is your heart. And then you must allow the Holy Spirit, which is the living water, to nourish it and flourish it. But you can't remove that seed if you want it to grow. It must be rooted until it produces fruit. And that starts with what I'm calling today, the Great Connection. See, we have a Great Commission, we're going to talk about that, and the Great Commandment, but it all starts with the Great Connection. Results are rooted in remaining. Remaining produces results, which is fruit. The result of our response is produced by remaining. Jesus is emphasizing that fruit comes from a continual, mutual, rooted relationship. It's how God grows us, the vine, the church, and produces fruit in our life. A vine must remain rooted if it's going to produce the fruit of love, of joy, of peace, of kindness, of goodness, of faithfulness, of endurance, of perseverance, by simply remaining. Remaining is a decision. I recently celebrated 31 years of marriage with Pastor Sarah, look at that. Our high school friends didn't give us but two weeks together after we were married. Oh, them boys are going to end up divorced.

But here we are 31 years later. You know what? But God. She's my high school sweetheart. You know, she took the player gloves off of me. She said, these are going up here. No more playing around with these females. We didn't make it because we felt in love every day. Trust me, most days I wear her out. Being in love is not what she feels. We made it because we remained relationally, continually, and intentionally committed to one another. I'm preaching to you. That's the language Jesus is using here. He says, remain in me and I in you. I remained in her and her remained in me. This is a mutual connection that starts with a decisive and intentional response. I remain in him and he remains in me. And if I don't, he won't. Write that down. If I don't, he won't. Have you ever walked through a setback, a storm, a betrayal, a season of unexpected pain? Come on now. And find yourself asking, where is Jesus? I know you've prayed that. You're going through hell and you say, Jesus, where are you? Now let's be honest. Sometimes the real question isn't where is Jesus, but where have we been? Where have we been? Maybe the distance is simply that I haven't remained. We've slipped back into patterns that we thought we left behind.

And we lie to ourselves by saying, no, I'm good. I believe. I love the Lord. I didn't question whether you believe or love the Lord. I asked you if you remained in the Lord. That's a vast different thing. Maybe we've been lying. Gossiping. Maybe you've been drinking too much. You get home and you're stressed out. I'm going to have a few cocktails before I go to bed. Because I got a lot of things going on and I work really hard and I deserve this. Maybe you've been drinking too much. Maybe you haven't told anyone because of the shame you're carrying around. Maybe you've been out here and come to church and go to your connect group but you're still fornicating out there. You're still out here masturbating. You can't keep your hands off your genitalia. You laugh but it's the truth. You have no fruit of the spirit that is self-control. So the little demons in your hands can't help but satisfy itself. You've been idolizing, maybe we just aren't rooted in Jesus. We've just used Jesus to get us out of hell, to get us out of problems. Maybe we've just used Jesus as a tool to make our lives better, right? For us to feel better about ourselves because we do feel bad that we did that to that other person because we do feel bad that we have broken the law because we do feel bad that we've hurt other people. We do.

I have no doubt that you feel. And so you have the shame. So we use Jesus to remove the shame. We used him as an emergency exit. Oh my God, I need you, Jesus. I'm gonna dedicate my life to you. If you just get the judge to give me probation instead of serving that time, or you dismiss my case because they don't have enough evidence. If you just help me out this time and you've not let my wife find out that I've been on Pornhub all week long while she was away, or, hey, listen, you know what? I don't want them to find out that I've been gossiping about them. Maybe we've used Jesus to help us through that situation. And so what we've done is we've reduced him to a, watch this, religious symbol instead of the living Lord. He wasn't, hey, I'm gonna tell you something. You're going through hell, right? He wasn't unfaithful. It's just, we've been unfaithful. We haven't, we haven't been in our word. We haven't been in prayer. We haven't entered into his presence with thanksgiving and praise. And so what we've done is we've been more in the world. We've been more in the music. We've been more on the next Netflix show.

That we've been more in the culture. We've been, we've been more interested. Can I bring it home and make it personal? Make it relevant for us? Might offend you. We've been more interested in what ICE is doing to people and what we want to protest about and what our opinions are and what our political oppositions are and who's a tyrant and who's a dictator and what dictators need to be let go and be free, right? We've been more worried about that. Who child is silent in here? We've been idolizing. And you know what? The whole time you've been gas lit because the enemy knows that if he gets you interested on what's going out there and all the darkness, cause it's all darkness. I'm gonna tell you right now. Both sides are involved in darkness. I ain't playing no games with y'all today, but you're more involved in the culture than in the kingdom. Maybe you've been more invested and slipped into your circle of friends and all they do is smoke weed, pop pills and drink, have worldly conversations. And it's the atmospheres that you're in, that you've entertained that are pulling us away from him. Listen to my heart.

Jesus will always come running when you call on him, but he will distance himself when you insist on living, hear me out, living in sin and acting foolishly. You know, I sent some of my people a meme this morning and the meme said, is a guy like look confused. It was like, when you realize this foolish guy, the Proverbs is talking about is me. I'm the fool in the Proverbs. Yeah. God is not petty. God is not punishing you, but he is holy. And he's gonna remove himself the moment something holy is entered into your life. He's, listen to me, he's gonna remove, he can't be around that crap. And intimacy with the Lord requires agreeing that he's right and you're wrong. It demands that you align with the kingdom of heaven and not the culture of the world. This is the issue. The issue is not whether Jesus is faithful. The issue is whether you're rooted or not. Are we rooted? If I remain in him, he remains in me, but if I don't, he won't. Remaining is a decision to connect through the word of God, through continual prayer. I didn't say. for you to pray when you say grace. Some people get on me because sometimes I don't say grace.

I'm gonna be honest with you, sometimes I don't say grace. But I've been talking to the Lord all day long when I'm driving, when I'm lifting weights, when I get up in the morning, when I'm making my coffee, I've been talking, I already thanked him for what I was gonna eat. Sometimes I feel as if people that say grace is just a religious exercise to let others know I got a relationship with the Lord. Listen, you gotta stay connected through intentional obedience. Even when I don't understand, even when I am uncomfortable, even when I am inconvenienced, Lord, my answer is yes, I'm gonna do it. Little children, I don't want to. Grown people say, man, I just got to. You understand what I'm saying? I hope I'm talking to, I hope some of y'all are being convicted, to be honest with you. As a loving pastor, I gotta tell you, you gotta get convicted. Because I need you to be rooted, suited, booted, so your trees can be fruited. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Remaining in these spiritual disciplines, keep us connected to him. That's what it is. But it keeps, listen, keeps us connected to the family of God. And it keeps us connected to the mission of the church, the called out ones. The more you pray, the more you read the word of God, the more you get to know Jesus, the more you know him, the more you fall in love with him. That builds trust needed to obey what he's asking us to do. The more we obey the convictions of our hearts, the more his love becomes evident in our lives. And the more you remain, the more you begin to know and believe and live out that I am not alone, that I am not forsaken, that I am a child of God, that I am loved, that I am more than a conqueror. And I begin to believe and live out the promise that I am with you always, even to the very end of age. But here's where many of us miss it. Nearness is not the same as closeness. Nearness talks about the proximity. I can get in proximity to the speaker, but closeness means I know the intricate pieces of the inside of that speaker. Closeness is the intimacy with God. Nearness is the proximity to God. And you need the closeness to God. Now, you may be saying, no, but I feel God in this room.

But that doesn't mean you know him in your daily life. You might be, listen, don't take this the wrong way. You might be benefiting from someone else's intimacy in this room. But you can walk in faithfulness, but you gotta tap in. Tap in, you gotta tap in. I can't tap in for you. I can't do that for you. Now, you're gonna feel the love of God when I talk to you, when I pray for you, when I preach to you, when I hug you, when you're around me. Anywhere you go with me, you're gonna feel the love of God because I'm tapped in. But the minute you leave, in order to experience that same love, you gotta stay plugged in. Have you ever, right, gone into like to bed and you grab your phone and you plug it in, right? And you wake up and it's only got 7% battery. You ever thought about that? That's how many of you live your Christian lives. You know why that happens? I learned very early on that if you don't really have that plug seated properly inside, it ain't gonna charge. Some of y'all are just not seated properly. And so here's what happens. When we're here, we're plugged into the presence of God. We're fully, because he has manifested the Kabod of God.

I'm teaching you something. That's why you feel it and you might wanna, why don't I feel that? Because you're not properly seated. His presence is irresistible. You feel it. It's powerful. It's thickness. You feel it in your tummy. You feel it in your skin. You feel it on the back of your head. You feel like crying or smiling or dancing. Some of us pass out at the altar apparently. And let me tell you something. That's him. It's his presence. It's not a show. But you gotta be properly seated. I think that far too many of us are living spiritually, running on spiritual fumes. The issue isn't that you weren't plugged in, it's that you weren't fully connected. You weren't properly seated at Union Houston. At Union Houston, we call that being all in. Not for union, for the Lord. I love that many of you call union your home and you call us family. I love that, but listen to me. If you're not in a connect group, you're not properly seated.

If you're not serving on a team, you're not properly seated. If you're not given toward the mission Jesus has entrusted us, the called out ones as a church, you're not properly seated. Are you with me? You cannot bear fruit without a greater connection, without remaining. Jesus is clear, apart from me, you can't do nothing. No connection, no results, no fruit. But connection alone isn't the end. It's just the beginning. Because remaining gets you rooted in Jesus. And when you're rooted, that love that he gave you on that cross grows in you. Before Jesus ever commissions us to do anything, he commands us to love. And here's the tension. How can you love others as yourself when you don't truly love yourself? Many of us struggle to love ourselves. We do not yet believe deeply that God loves us. You say it, you tell yourself, but do you actually believe it? God still feels distant to you, like a theory, something out there, like a powerful deity. But he's not yet your father. For some of you, the image of God is distorted because of your earthly fathers or mothers. For others, culture has shaped your identity

more than scripture. I'm gonna land there for just a second. You hear me? Your cultural identity is bigger than your scriptural identity. Your worldly identity is greater than your spiritual identity. So we go around talking to ourselves and believing labels that the world has put. Prisoner, number 713-45556. Addict, I'm a victim, I'm a failure, I'm a mistake. My mother never wanted me. We let those labels affect us, but Jesus calls you loved. And if you don't remain connected to him, to his truth, to his presence, to his voice, to his word of God, and you keep living under what I like to call false identities, you'll never grow. This is why Jesus shifts the conversation from remaining to responding in love. You got to know that love, from connection to commandment. Because without the great connection, we can't live out the great commandment. The great commandment says love your neighbor as yourself. Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. You can't live that out. Love is the atmosphere of remaining. Jesus continues and he says, as the father has loved me, so have I loved you.

Now remain in my love. Love is not the goal of the relationship. Love is the atmosphere of the relationship. Love is the result of the relationship. Are you with me? Are you following? This is why I have been given us the phrase that I'm gonna be pounding into our heads. Love God, love people, make disciples. This is what it's all about. Love God, love people, make disciples. But it all starts with loving God. Decision, love God. You cannot love people rightly, and you cannot make disciples faithfully if you're not remaining in the love of God. We define biblical love a few weeks ago as agape. It is a unconditional, sacrificial, committed love. Love is not a feeling, it's a decision, it's a posture, it's a commitment. Jesus make this unmistakably clear when he says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. In other words, we got to fall in love with Jesus first before we can live out the great commandment. Obedience doesn't come after love as a reward. Obedience positions us to experience. Listen, it's not the reward of obedience, it's the position of obedience that we receive his love. It produce, obedience produces the ability to love. And I want to make sure that this is clear

because God is a God of order and priority. God already proved his love that he sent his only son and to die on a cross while we were still filthy sinners. His love is never and will never be in question. When we respond to what he has done and who he is, we obey his commands. We are flooded with his love, not to store it up, but to let it flow through and to overflow to others. This is one thing, spouses, married people, it doesn't matter how much you know about Jesus, if they can't tell, if you don't have the same level of grace, if you don't have the same level of mercy, if you don't have the same level of sacrifice, you are probably being religious and you're not in a relationship with God. Our decision to follow Jesus doesn't earn his love, it releases his love to us. It releases our capacity to receive it. And when we recognize that no one can love us like he does, only then can we release this kind of love to those around us. In fact, Paul tells Timothy to make sure he picks leaders, not pastors, just leaders, elders. And he begins first by, look at how they treat their spouses. That's because Jesus is our spouse. That's how we become able to love those who hurt you. You're called to love those who hurt you.

You're called to love those who persecute you. You are called to love and pray for your enemies, but it all hangs on remaining, being rooted. And many of us carry deep pain, abuse, betrayal, trauma from people who said they loved you. Our culture has defined love for us through quitting. I don't love you anymore, I'm getting a divorce. Ah, you did me wrong, I'm walking away from you. Do you know how many people told me they love me? Love you, bro, gave me kisses in my cheek, and the moment they got upset. Man, I wonder if Jesus would ever do that to us. That's not love. They wanted something from you. We've defined it as convenient. I'm gonna love you, but when I got time, let me look at my calendar, let me look at my Google calendar real quick. All my calendar people. We've reduced it to feelings. Love is a decision, not a feeling. We've reduced love to self-protection. So divorce, adultery, division, and canceling people has become normal in our culture. And I'm gonna tell you something, that is not love, okay? You can't say you love... I love the Palestinian people and they gotta stop the genocide. And remain silent for our brothers and sisters in Iran. You can't do that.

You don't know love. You wanting to be seen as a social justice warrior. You can't go around saying it ain't right to kill people on the streets, but it's determined by the color of their skin, whether we love them or not. Can't do that. You can't do that. This is not how it works. You can't talk about that you believe in the gospel and you start bringing up this idea of some other people need more benefits and more things. That's socialism. The gospel dismantles all systems of injustice by making us children of God, by calling us by his identity, by anointing us with authority and power. We can't reduce that. That kind of love, that's world. Jesus calls us to biblical love, and if He's our Savior and our Lord, we must love Him more than our ideas, our ideologies, our politics, our preferences, our comforts, our opinions. God does not love one group more than another. For God so loved the world, John 3, 16. It does not say the Jew, the Israel, the Palestinians, the church, the saint, the perfect, the holy, loves the world. It wouldn't be the gospel if He didn't love the whole world,

the sinners, the heathens, the lost, the least, the broken, those that are in injustice and those that are creating the injustice. He loves them both, and we've got to come back to that reality and that truth. When we remain in this truth, our attitude and our convictions, it's the only way we can reflect His love. It's the only way. This is the only way we can accomplish the one thing Jesus entrusted us to do. He didn't entrust, for all my MAGA people, He didn't entrust Donald Trump to do this. For you leftists, He didn't entrust Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris, I'm throwing shots today because I'm tired of the division. He entrusted me and you, those who have truly called Jesus their Lord to do this. We must live out the great commandment before we can live in the great commission, and you've got to live in the great commission if you're a disciple of Jesus. You can't live in the great commission in your home with your little house group and all your buddies that all you do is talk about Jesus and don't talk to others about Jesus. We've got to have the great connection. We've got to live out the great commandment and live for the great commission. This is the fruit we must bear that multiplies much fruit.

The great commission is what we exist to do as followers of Jesus. Newsflash, it ain't to go to heaven. Stop thinking about heaven and start bringing heaven. Stop thinking about the rapture. We are the rapture. It's exactly what connecting people to God is all about. You're a unionist. It's the great commission. Jesus says it plainly. All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. That means that every demon must bow to his name. We sing the song and it's written in scripture. Every principality, every dominion, every ruler, every authority has got to lick his boots. But it only works when we do the following. Go and make disciples. Are you not producing fruit in your life? You're not going and making disciples. I got to move because they talked a lot before I came on stage. And they, but this is about to get good. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you to the very end of the age. This is the driving force of Union Houston. This is our passion. This is why we believe big at Union Houston. This is why we're believing for big moves of God.

This is why we pray all bold and audacious prayers. We're believing that one day someone's going to give us a piece of land, a building, something, because they can see what God is doing in this place. Because we refuse to settle for comfort and convenience and the culture because Jesus said, go and you're going. See in the English, it sounds like it's a one-time event, a moment, not a movement, but that's not what Jesus meant. In fact, in both the Greek and Aramaic, the word carries a force that is continuing and ongoing action. Not a single step, but a lifestyle. It actually sounds more like this, as you are going. When Jesus said go, what he was really saying is, as you are going. going continually, intentionally, everywhere you live as you are parenting, as you are dating, as you are working, as you are serving, as you are living, make disciples. Some of us go to work and don't talk about Jesus, we talk about our spouses to our co-workers. We complain about our children to our co-workers. We complain about our bosses to our co-workers. Make disciples. This should be a shift for you today because Jesus never said, and oh you don't understand pastor, I don't know, I'm uncomfortable, I haven't made it that way. Well Jesus never said for you to be perfect. Jesus never told you to be a pastor. Jesus never told you to be a prophet. As a matter of fact, if you think you're a prophet, you're probably not a prophet. That's real talk. That's real talk. Real talk. I can prove you scripturally how that is. All the prophets never wanted it. They tried to run from it. Just let's look at Elijah, he ran. Okay, he didn't ask you to be a theologian. He didn't ask you to be a know-it-all. Oh, come on, come on. Hey, know-it-alls. He asked us to make disciples. All right, how? I'm glad you asked. Love God, relationship. Watch this. Love people is the activation of that relationship.

Make disciples is the multiplication of who you are. It's as simple as that. All nations means all people, all people groups. Hear me, all backgrounds, all stories, even the ones that annoy you. That's why union exists. For all people, always. If we start separating people into categories, how they vote, how they look, how old they are, we've drifted from the mission and the truth of God, and we've gone back. We need to go back to the beginning, which is the great connection. Jesus says to baptize. Baptism is a public declaration of a private decision, and if you've given your life to Jesus, you haven't been baptized. Today's your sign to be baptized. Sign up. Don't delay. This is your sign. The Lord is telling you, stop delaying. Stop making excuses. Sign up. Sign up for the next baptism. Don't delay that obedience. But the last part of the great commission may be the most overlooked, and it's the most important. Watch this. Teaching them to obey, not some, not most, everything I have commanded you. That's my job. That's your job to teach people. Loving God compels me to obey his commands. Loving people allows love to flow through me. Making disciples means I help others learn how to obey as they follow me while I follow Jesus. Are you with me? This is, those are the words of Paul, by the way. This is not faith where we are saved and never changed. This is not a gospel where we keep living the same way that God has broken in the first place. We don't raise hands and count numbers. We raise disciples. That means we teach the truth of God here. That means we learn the truth of God. We apply the truth of God, and we pursue transformation through the truth of God. Not everything Jesus teaches is easy, but everything Jesus teaches is good. The great commission is not a program. It's not an event. It's a lifestyle, and it starts here. I must have a great connection so I can live in the great commandment to fulfill the great commission. That's why Union Houston was planted in the heart of Houston, to connect people to God and raise disciples who live faithfully to him. I want everyone to take a moment right now and sit with this truth. Fruit is not produced by effort. Fruit is produced by connection, by being rooted. Some of you have been trying really hard to live the Christian life, but trying hard doesn't get you there. You've been really trying really hard to love. You've been really trying really hard to change. You've been trying really hard to be faithful and not go back. You're exhausted. You're tired. You're frustrated because you've been striving instead of abiding. Remain. Jesus didn't say try harder. He just said remain.

Today, I wanna invite you to take a step. First, those who need the great connection. Some of you are close to God but not are connected. You may be near the vine but not rooted in it. And you believe in Jesus but you haven't fully surrendered to Jesus. You've known about him but you haven't remained with him. If today you're realizing I've been living on spiritual fumes, I've been plugged in but not properly seated, I want real fruit, not religious motion, today is your moment in saying, Jesus, I choose to remain. Number two, for those who need to return to the love, some of you have lost the joy of loving God. Life has hardened you, pain has guarded you, disappointment has distracted you and closed you off. But Jesus isn't asking you to feel more, he's asking you to trust him again. If your love has grown cold, distant, transactional, today's an invitation to get rooted back in his love. Not to prove yourself, not to impress him, not to impress others, but to receive what he's already given us. And for those who are ready to live the mission, and some of you know, you've been called but you've been standing still. You love God, you love people, but you haven't stepped into making disciples. Today isn't about guilt, it's about a call to alignment. Jesus didn't save you to sit,

he saved you to bear fruit that lasts. If you're ready, you're saying, Jesus, my life is yours, use me. I'm gonna ask you to do something at the end. Connectors 101 right there, if you've been to meet the team, today's the day, don't slide. Today's your day, I want you to stand with me. Close your eyes, bow your heads. Will you remain rooted in Jesus? Not a visit, not an observation, not to admire, but to remain. Listen to me, if you're ready to respond, to reconnect, to return, to realign, this is your moment. With every head bowed and every eye closed, if today you wanna give your life to Jesus, if you wanna come back and say, Jesus, I have all of you, I want you to, in your heart, make that decision that Jesus is the son of God, that he lived, suffered, and died for your sins. And on our third day, he rose again so that you may be risen to new life. If that's you, shoot up your hand real quick, shoot up your hand so I can pray for you. Shoot up your hand and thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Father God, we thank you. Lord, I leave these people to remain in your presence and for the truth that has gone forth today to remain in their hearts.

May the Holy Spirit water it and let it flourish. I pray this in Jesus' mighty name, amen. Come on, church, give God praise for the word of the Lord that has gone forth. Hey, if you raised your hands and you said, I'm making today and I'm making a decision that.