I. Three words for 2026: Connection, Expansion & Commission.
A. Summary.
1. Emphasis on Connection:
a. This year the focus will be on strengthening our connection to God and to godly relationships that will encourage, inspire and help us move forward in His call for our lives.
b. Some connections that are no longer life-giving, the Lord gently will prune away.
c. We will learn to walk in a deeper revelation of John 15, what it means to abide in the Vine. The Lord is calling us to spend more time in the Spirit and He will teach us what that means and how to do it if we respond to Him.
2. Expansion:
a. As a result of a stronger, deeper and more frequent communion with God, we will grow. As we receive abundant life from Him, growth will happen naturally.
b. Instead of seeking the gifts or the anointing, as we seek Him, the gifts and the anointing will be found in Him.
c. Our growth will cause the people we are connected to to grow as well.
d. Isa 65:8
“Thus says the Lord: “As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one says, ‘Do not destroy it, for a
blessing is in it,’ So will I do for My servants’ sake, that I may not destroy them all.”
e. As we learn to stay connected to the Lord and to allow Him to connect us with others, He will pour out the new wine, life from the Spirit, and blessing will be found in godly relationships.
3. Commission:
a. Another result of new life flowing from Holy Spirit into our spirit and we will start to have renewed vision, clarity or purpose, renewed optimism and motivation.
b. The Lord will anoint us with His Spirit for the works that He has called us to and their will be life in the work.
4. Activation:
a. All that we have to do in order of this to happen is choose the Lord and maintain our connection to Him.
b. This will be the year of choosing life in the Spirit, or death from the flesh.
II. Connection.
A. John 15:1-8
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
1. What does it mean to abide in Christ? To remain in Him, stay in Him, don’t drift away, don’t be a Sunday Christian or a CHINO (Christian In Name Only).
2. Let’s look at the key symbols used by Jesus in this passage:
a. Jesus, the true vine
b. Father, the vinedresser, the gardener, etc.
c. Holy Spirit, the sap, the life flowing from Vine to branches, also the fruit
d. The branches, people…
3. Different categories of branches:
a. Vs 2 branches in Christ that break no fruit, these are taken away (plucked up)
b. Vs 2 branches in Christ that bear fruit, these are pruned to bear more fruit
c. Vs 6 branches that do not abide in Christ, these are cast out, they wither because there is no life in them, and they are gathered and thrown into the fire
B. Three symbols with three types of fruit: a vine, a fig tree and an olive tree.
1. It will help us to grasp the big picture of what God is doing if we understand these symbols that He used to speak to us in the Bible. These are the vine, the fig tree and the olive tree.
a. The vine: now the church, but historically speaks of God’s covenant people
b. The fig tree: Israel
c. The olive tree: the redeemed saints of Israel and the Gentiles, OT & NT.
2. The Vine:
a. The vine speaks of covenant (“This My blood of the New Covenant…)
b. The vine began with Abraham, spanned the OT saints until Christ, Who is the true vine. We are not the vine, we are the branches.
c. The vine spoke of Israel in the OT; Psalm 80:89 “You brought a vine out of Egypt…”; Isa 5:1-7 “The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel.” God looked for good grapes but it produced wild grapes (stinking, worthless grapes; also used for poison berries.)
d. This is why Jesus said “I am the true vine.” Jesus triumphed where Israel failed, He lived a life that was pleasing to God. He is now the Vine.
e. If we want to be pleasing to God and produce good fruit, we have to remain connected to the True Vine.
3. The Fig Tree:
a. The fig tree speaks of the nation of Israel. Jeremiah 24- two baskets of figs, one of good fruit the other of spoiled rotten fruit.
b. When Jesus was hungry and came looking for fruit on the tree, there was no fruit, so Jesus cursed the tree and it withered and died. This speaks of the lack of spiritual fruit in Israel and the end of the Mosaic Covenant. (Mark 11:12-25)
c. Again, we see a theme in Mark 11… God is looking for fruit.
d. “…He was hungry but found nothing but leaves… it was not the season for figs.”
e. Leaves represent religion (Adam & Eve attempting to cover themselves.)
f. 2 Timothy 4:2 “Be ready in season and out of season.” If we are connected to the True Vine, we will always be fruitful.
4. The Olive Tree:
a. The olive tree speaks of the righteous throughout history, both OT & NT.
b. The root is Abraham and the patriarchs, the natural branches are the righteous of Israel and the grafted in branches are righteous Gentiles. Together they make one tree.
c. Rom 11:17-24
5. These symbols reveal some important principles to us:
a. God connects Himself to people by covenant and He faithfully maintains His covenant through every generation. (Vinedresser, cultivated olive tree (Rom 11:24) He is looking for covenant people to serve Him in love, not obligation.
b. He expects fruit from His covenant people. (He is not just looking for it, He expects it.)
c. The church has not replaced Israel. Jesus replaced the vine, the fig tree was cursed but the olive tree remains, which contains the redeemed of of Israel and the Gentiles.
d. Joel 2:22 says that in the last days, “the fig tree and the vine yield their strength.”
C. Take another look at vs 1-8.
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
1. What kind of fruit is God looking for? The fruit of the Spirit.
a. Gal 5:22&23 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
2. The Lord is looking for fruit in us and we can only produce that fruit by staying connected to Him. By remaining in His Word and in His love.
III. Vs 9-17.
A. Vs 9&10
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments,
you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
1. How do we remain (abide) in His love? By obedience.
a. It is impossible to be fruitful and be rebellious, independent, etc.
b. To stay connected we have to obey His Word.
B. Vs 11-17
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
1. Vs 16 “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”
2. We have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit that we have yet to produce. There is an expectation on us that has yet to be met.
3. Imagine that God the Father, the vinedresser, the land worker, and Christ the Son, the True Vine, have surveyed the fields of our life and calculated the yield of fruit they can reasonably expect from their watering and pruning. And they have a number in mind of how much fruit the soil of our heart should yield from their efforts.
4. The problem is that we have other fruit in mind. We have other ideas for the fields of our life that are different and often in conflict with God’s ideas. We are in danger of being like the fig tree that Jesus cursed. We are in danger of being the unfruitful branch that is taken out of the way.
5. He says “You did not choose Me, but I chose you…” Remember that God connects Himself to people by covenant and He maintains that covenant through the centuries. We do not join ourselves to God by a contract, we do not give Him part of our life and keep back the rest for ourselves.
a. Are like Ananias and Sapphira who sold land, gave some of the money to the church and kept back the rest? We cannot lie otherwise God, He knows our hearts.
6. God has an expected yield for His labor in us. Remember the fruit He is looking for in us, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We have been appointed to bear this fruit and it should remain fresh and not spoil. But this expectation is still unmet, the yield is still unfulfilled.
C. What is the expected fruit?
1. What do I mean by this? There are people we are called to love that we haven’t loved yet. There are situations in which we have been called to remain joyful in spite of the circumstances but we haven’t been joyful yet.
2. God is coming looking to see if there is any peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control but he hasn’t found it yet.
3. And I am not saying this to bring condemnation, guilt or shame. I am not saying this to make you try harder. I am saying this to make you aware of the importance of our connection to God and to the body of Christ.
4. I’m saying this to remind us all (myself included) that our obedience is a make or break issue.
a. The unfruitful branches were taken up, removed.
b. The branches that did not remain in Christ withered and were cast into fire.
5. There is an unmet expectation, an order that is yet to be filled, hanging over every one of us, and the only way to meet this demand is by remaining connected to the Lord and to one another.
6. The issue is not what will do for God but who we will love and how well we will love them. The issue is not works by themselves, but love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
III. Expansion.
A. Connected to the Lord and to one another.
1. Vine speaks of covenant. If you are in covenant with the Lord, you are automatically in covenant with one another.
2. Vs 12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
B. The blessing is in the cluster.
1. The vast majority of fruit bearing plants bear their fruit in clusters or in multiples. There are a few that do not, i.e., pineapples, agave, etc. I’m glad that Jesus did not compare us to these because after producing one fruit, the plant dies.
2. Have you ever seen a vine with one strand? Have you ever seen a vine produce just one grape? Or an olive tree produce just one olive?
3. How much wine does one grape make? How much oil can be pressed from one olive? Is that useful to you? The next time you cook a meal, is the oil of one olive enough to cook the whole meal? Is one grape enough for a glass of juice? Is that enough for us to share in communion?
C. Our Father, the Vinedresser.
1. Relationships, some connections that are no longer life giving He will prune away. Some He will mend and they will heal in time. Some new connections will be made.
IV. Closing.
A. Snowing in the Church & Fruitful Harvest Dream.
Dreamed I was working in the church, painting the walls white with some help from other TRC family. It began to snow inside the church. We kept working and it snowed in every room. The snow became so thick with huge flakes and we had worked all day so we decided to stop for the day and go home. Before I left I noticed fresh tomatoes at the info desk that were there for the taking. I grabbed a bushel basket and filled it with tomatoes to take home.
I went outside and it was sunny and warm, unlike the snow inside the church. I wasn’t in downtown Mint Hill but at a farm. Another TRC person was outside with a bushel basket full as well. We were outside a barn and surrounding us on all four sides were fields of produce.
There were grill stations all around the farm at the edge of the produce fields, probably two dozen of them or more. Small teams of 2-3 people were gathered around the grills cooking the vegetables but each grill also had fish on it. The other TRC person and I were really excited and talking about ways to cook this stuff. Different recipes combos, etc. We were excited about how the reactions of our friends and family to this food.
So I woke up and I was going to write it down but I fell back to sleep and dreamed it again. I was in an old farm truck, with the person from the first dream but now also with another person from TRC. We were inside the truck inside the barn. I started telling them my dream and then I saw the whole thing again. As I narrated what happened I saw the first dream play out again.
I asked the Lord to confirm this and I got Psalm 103. Also Psalm 85.
1. Psalm 103:1-5
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: 3 Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, 4 Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, 5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
2. Psalm 85:10-13
10 Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed. 11 Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. 12 Yes, the Lord will give what is good; and our land will yield its increase. 13 Righteousness will go before Him, and shall make His footsteps our pathway.