Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / The Exhaustion of Trying Harder - February 22, 2026

Transcript

The Exhaustion of Trying Harder - February 22, 2026 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

• 0:00
  Good morning. My name is Dave.
• 0:03
  I'm one of the pastors around here.
• 0:05
  I will be in John chapter 15 today continuing our losing
• 0:10
  statement series. This week we're going to be
• 0:13
  talking about losing our self-reliance.
• 0:17
  Let me ask you something and get a little feedback.
• 0:22
  Is this a safe place to share something I hear?
• 0:28
  Little hesitant. I mean, can I really be honest
• 0:32
  and open with you guys? OK.
• 0:35
  I mean, Pastor Daniel's not here right now.
• 0:38
  Are you going to tell on me? Not too long ago, I found myself
• 0:46
  drifting further from Christ while simultaneously working
• 0:53
  harder for him. Think about that.
• 0:57
  I'm drifting away from God, from feeling his presence, enjoying
• 1:02
  Him, while at the same time I'm working harder for him in
• 1:09
  ministry and Kingdom stuff. Like how does that happen?
• 1:15
  How am I drifting away from God? I remember one Sunday morning I
• 1:21
  got a phone call right before church.
• 1:23
  Typically not a good thing. It's OK, We got this.
• 1:29
  I hear our worship leader is sick.
• 1:32
  Not coming in. What do you want to do about it?
• 1:37
  This is at my previous structure.
• 1:39
  No Katie, No Lee to fix me. And I'm being asked, what do we
• 1:46
  do? No worries.
• 1:49
  I'm a fixer. We got this on the way out.
• 1:52
  I'm hustling. I see my daughter.
• 1:53
  Hey Liz, super small favor. You want to come to church with
• 2:01
  me right now and help lead worship?
• 2:05
  Like in 14 minutes? Reluctantly, somehow she says OK
• 2:14
  what songs are we singing? Yeah, that's a great question.
• 2:21
  On the way to church, I picked 3 songs.
• 2:24
  We're in church, we're telling the tech guy, OK, these are the
• 2:27
  three, three songs we're going to do.
• 2:29
  It's hectic. He's putting them in the
• 2:30
  computer as quick as possible. I grab my guitar, we head up to
• 2:34
  stage. I get on stage, put a smile on.
• 2:38
  I say good morning, let's worship.
• 2:41
  We finish worship. I head downstairs, take off my
• 2:48
  guitar, take off my in ears, take a big breath, grab my
• 2:56
  wireless mic, head back upstairs and preach for the message that
• 3:02
  day. At the end of that Sunday, I was
• 3:11
  empty. I've been grinding, trying to do
• 3:16
  the right thing at that time in my life, trying to be a better
• 3:19
  husband, trying to be a more patient dad, trying to leave the
• 3:24
  church well, preach better sermons, be more present, be
• 3:28
  more focused, more disciplined. And at the end of it all, I was
• 3:35
  cooked, exhausted, working harder than I had ever done in
• 3:44
  church, and yet drifting further away from God.
• 3:53
  If the life, if the Christian life, is supposed to be about
• 3:58
  freedom, about joy, about abundance, then why did it feel
• 4:04
  like I was slowly dying? I I had turned the gospel into a
• 4:13
  self help program with the Jesus sticker slapped on it.
• 4:19
  At no point during all that was I getting closer to God.
• 4:24
  My ability continued to grow, my dependence weakened.
• 4:34
  And I'm not the only one. We live in a culture.
• 4:38
  We're obsessed with this self improvement. 10 to 15,000 new
• 4:43
  self help books are published every year.
• 4:46
  Optimize your routine, hack your mourning, level up your life and
• 4:51
  the message is always the same. You can do this.
• 4:54
  You just have to have the right program, the right mindset, the
• 4:58
  right habits. And this happens in the church
• 5:01
  to try harder, do better, clean yourself up.
• 5:05
  And millions of Christians are running themselves into the
• 5:08
  ground, exhausted. Exhausted by a Christianity that
• 5:14
  was never supposed to feel or be like this Jesus.
• 5:22
  Jesus offers something completely different and we're
• 5:27
  missing it. I missed it.
• 5:31
  I'm tempted to miss it again this week, every week.
• 5:37
  So let's open our Bibles and understand what Jesus actually
• 5:42
  offers us. John 15 verse one.
• 5:47
  I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.
• 5:53
  Every branch me that does not produce fruit, he removes.
• 5:57
  He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will
• 6:03
  produce more fruit. You are already clean because of
• 6:08
  the words I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you, Just
• 6:13
  as a branch as unable to produce fruit by itself unless it
• 6:17
  remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.
• 6:25
  I am the vine, you are the branch, the one who remains in
• 6:30
  me, and I and him produce much fruit because you can do nothing
• 6:35
  without me. If anyone does not remain in me,
• 6:39
  he's thrown aside like a branch head, and he Withers.
• 6:44
  They gather them, they throw them into the fire, they are
• 6:47
  burned. If you remain in me and my words
• 6:50
  remain in you, ask. Ask whatever you want, and it
• 6:55
  will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this,
• 7:01
  that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciple.
• 7:07
  As the Father, He loved me, and I have also loved you.
• 7:12
  Remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you
• 7:17
  will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands
• 7:23
  and remain in His love. I have told you these things so
• 7:29
  that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
• 7:40
  The problem is we're addicted to self-reliance.
• 7:48
  Let me ask you, how is that going?
• 7:51
  This whole self-reliance thing? Because I've spent years trying
• 7:56
  to produce fruit like my life that I actually want, forcing it
• 8:04
  through pure willpower. I've tried to manage my anger,
• 8:09
  trying really hard not to be angry.
• 8:12
  I've tried to be more patient, more loving, more kind, more
• 8:16
  like Jesus. I'll tell you what, this is
• 8:20
  exhausting because you can't produce spiritual through fruit,
• 8:28
  through effort. It's literally impossible.
• 8:35
  It's like trying to take a rock and squeeze it so apple juice
• 8:41
  comes out of it. But we live in a culture, a
• 8:45
  culture that has trained us to believe we can do anything if we
• 8:48
  just try harder. And that lie has infected us.
• 8:54
  It's infected our thinking. It infected our spiritual lives.
• 8:58
  We see Christianity as behavior management.
• 9:05
  We think it's about trying really hard to do good, keeping
• 9:11
  the rules, managing our thoughts, managing our
• 9:15
  addictions. And Jesus says, look, you've got
• 9:19
  this all wrong. He actually, he says apart from
• 9:26
  me, you can do nothing, nothing. Now, apart from me, it's going
• 9:34
  to be harder. No, without abiding in Christ,
• 9:40
  we may build careers, reputations and comfort, but not
• 9:45
  a life. Not a life that is externally
• 9:49
  significant or deeply satisfying here on earth.
• 9:53
  Nothing eternal. Most of us have experienced fake
• 10:00
  fruit in our lives, sitting on our kitchen tables.
• 10:06
  This looks amazing, perfect. But you cut into it, you bite
• 10:13
  into it, and you're left with disappointments.
• 10:18
  Emptiness. Actually, there's a rock in the
• 10:20
  middle of this. Did you know that we run on our
• 10:26
  own effort long enough? You do this and you'll get fake
• 10:35
  fruit. I can be super patient for three
• 10:40
  to five days, super gentle. I can be gentle until I have to
• 10:48
  tell my son about the fifth or six times, dude, you got to
• 10:51
  listen to me. Then the ACT is over.
• 10:57
  I'm not sustaining being more like Jesus.
• 11:03
  I'm just producing fake fruit. Jesus isn't saying you need him
• 11:09
  to help you, He's saying you need him to be the real you.
• 11:18
  The branch doesn't help produce grapes.
• 11:25
  The branch receives life from the vine and fruit happens
• 11:32
  naturally as a result. How often do we treat Jesus as a
• 11:37
  life coach, a spiritual life coach?
• 11:40
  We pray for tips and tricks and strategies.
• 11:44
  So often we put our identity in what we're doing and producing
• 11:48
  instead of who we're actually connected to.
• 11:52
  The reality is you and I, we're a branch.
• 11:58
  We're not a fruit factory. Look at verse 5.
• 12:02
  It says I am the vine. You are the branches.
• 12:06
  Your identity is not a fruit producer.
• 12:10
  Your identity is a branch. A branch has one job, It's to
• 12:15
  stay connected to the vine. That's it.
• 12:19
  As the branch receives life, real fruit is the inevitable
• 12:26
  result for those of us who love to be in control.
• 12:33
  Jesus is saying your primary responsibility isn't to produce
• 12:38
  fruit, it's to abide, to stay connected, to receive.
• 12:43
  We workaholics love to call ourselves the responsible people
• 12:48
  in the room. Amen.
• 12:52
  But really, we just want to control things because it makes
• 12:57
  us feel better, safer, more valued.
• 13:02
  And those of us who've put our identity and performing and
• 13:06
  producing this concept is terrifying because if we're not
• 13:13
  manufacturing fruit through our effort, then what are we doing
• 13:17
  with our lives? Our job.
• 13:21
  Our job isn't to create fruit. Our job is to stay connected to
• 13:27
  Christ. He produces fruit through US,
• 13:34
  life through us, that we can never produce on our own.
• 13:39
  The Christian life isn't about knowing more, it's about abiding
• 13:46
  more. I, I am an extremely critical
• 13:52
  person. My family, my coworkers, they
• 13:54
  will vouch for this. It took multiple people to point
• 14:01
  it out before I was even willing to look at it to deal with it.
• 14:07
  My natural response is I will fix this.
• 14:10
  I got this. I'm the king fixer.
• 14:12
  I'll fix anything. Give me a YouTube video, I'll
• 14:15
  see it. I'll fix it.
• 14:19
  I've thought this idea so many times.
• 14:22
  My very first tattoo, it's going to be written inside my eyelids.
• 14:26
  It's going to say be gentle. Every time I close my eyes I can
• 14:30
  see this. Be gentle be gentle.
• 14:34
  When I try to fix these things I last I white knuckle it and last
• 14:38
  about 3 days. Be gentle.
• 14:43
  Less critical, but it never really sticks because I'm
• 14:50
  treating the symptom instead of the root of the problem, trying
• 14:56
  to manufacture gentleness and patience through sheer
• 14:58
  willpower. This doesn't work.
• 15:00
  It can't work because we're not fruit factories.
• 15:06
  We're branches. Not until I stop stop trying to
• 15:13
  fix this problem and realize I'm drifting from God.
• 15:21
  That's when I can start working on it.
• 15:25
  We don't fix our problems by staring at them.
• 15:29
  We fix our problems by staring at Jesus, spending more time
• 15:35
  with Him. You don't have the resources to
• 15:39
  produce the life that God is calling you to live.
• 15:43
  We were not designed this way. You were designed to let Jesus
• 15:48
  flow through you, not to create it on your own.
• 15:54
  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control,
• 15:59
  gentleness. This is not a checklist.
• 16:03
  This is flavor of the fruit. It's like saying an apple is
• 16:09
  sweet and crisp and juicy. So what does abiding actually
• 16:17
  mean? It means remaining to stay, to
• 16:22
  dwell, to make your home in, to live in Jesus.
• 16:29
  This is not a quick visit. It's not stopping by to check in
• 16:32
  with Jesus one week at church. It's living a constant
• 16:36
  connection to him. Look at verse 4.
• 16:39
  It says abide in me and I in you.
• 16:42
  Jesus isn't standing there from a distance saying work harder,
• 16:48
  get closer to me. He's saying I'm already in you,
• 16:54
  Christian, and you're already in me.
• 16:59
  Now live like it's true. Abiding is reflecting on God and
• 17:07
  all his goodness to the point where joy, joy just starts to
• 17:12
  spill out of you. Abiding is listening to worship
• 17:15
  music where it actually generally rises your spirit.
• 17:20
  Abiding means talking with Jesus throughout your day, not just
• 17:23
  praying in your morning or when you get a flat tire, but in all
• 17:27
  the moments, this isn't about being supernatural.
• 17:31
  This is about being super honest, saying Jesus, I'm about
• 17:37
  to walk into this situation. I'm anxious.
• 17:42
  I need you, Lord. I'm frustrated with my kids.
• 17:44
  I'm tired of them. Give me patience, I need you.
• 17:52
  It's recognizing your need to turn to the source in real time.
• 18:02
  Secondly, abiding means saturating our mind and what God
• 18:06
  says, so that when lies come, let me tell you the lies will
• 18:11
  come. Amen.
• 18:13
  You have something stronger to reach for when anxiety and shame
• 18:17
  and fear starts shaking you. You interrupted with what?
• 18:21
  God says. Anxiety tells you this situation
• 18:25
  is hopeless, you're going to fall apart.
• 18:28
  God says I will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 18:33
  Shame tells you you've messed up way too many times.
• 18:36
  You're done. You're disqualified.
• 18:38
  God says there is no condemnation for those in Christ
• 18:43
  Jesus. Fear tells you you're on your
• 18:45
  own, figure it out. God says I'm the vine, you're
• 18:51
  the branch. My life, my life is in you right
• 18:56
  now. Folks, read your Bibles not as a
• 19:00
  religious duty, but when the time arises, you can stand so
• 19:05
  tall on God's truth and interrupt those lies.
• 19:11
  Psalm one says the person who meditates on God's word day and
• 19:15
  night is like a tree. Like a tree planted by streams
• 19:20
  of water that yields fruit in season.
• 19:25
  That's not poetic language. That is a promise.
• 19:33
  He becomes your water source. Abiding means you're so
• 19:38
  saturated in what God says that it becomes your default way of
• 19:42
  thinking to the point it just leaks out of you.
• 19:48
  Abiding means learning to recognize when you've
• 19:54
  disconnected. For me, the warning sign is I'm
• 20:01
  overwhelmed. Not a dramatic crisis, just that
• 20:06
  constant feeling that I can't do everything.
• 20:09
  I can't catch up. The mental loop starts to go.
• 20:13
  I've got this, I've got to fix it.
• 20:14
  It all depends on me. I get short, I get irritable.
• 20:18
  I'm half present talking to you because I'm already thinking
• 20:21
  about two more things ahead. This could be a workload
• 20:27
  problem, but over and over it's a connection problem.
• 20:35
  I've drifted back into performance instead of receiving
• 20:44
  what God has already given me. I'm trying to be the fruit
• 20:50
  instead of the branch and it's not working.
• 20:55
  This is not spiritual gymnastics.
• 21:00
  This is just an honest connection with God.
• 21:05
  Maybe your sign isn't being overwhelmed.
• 21:08
  Maybe it's not resentment. But maybe it is comparisons.
• 21:15
  Maybe you don't know what it is. I challenge you.
• 21:21
  Before you go to bed tonight, evaluate your connection on the
• 21:28
  car ride home, maybe at lunch, before the end of the day.
• 21:34
  Ask God. God, when and where do you see
• 21:41
  me? Drifting away from you #2 ask
• 21:47
  somebody who cares about you. Whatever this is that you
• 21:53
  discover, learn it, name it. Give next week a fighting chance
• 22:01
  to be different. Different through the knowledge
• 22:03
  of knowing what this is. Different by relying on Christ,
• 22:11
  abiding in his Word, in his truth, Because we can't
• 22:17
  reconnect to something that we don't notice, we don't notice
• 22:24
  we've actually disconnected from Him.
• 22:28
  Abiding isn't passive, but it is restful.
• 22:34
  There's a difference. Tomorrow, before you fill your
• 22:38
  lives up with your commute, before your kids, before your
• 22:42
  emails go to Christ, tell them Jesus, I can't do this on my
• 22:48
  own. I need you.
• 22:53
  And we may discover, we may discover that something needs to
• 22:57
  be removed from our lives for us to abide in Him.
• 23:01
  Verse 2 says every branch in me that does not bear fruit he
• 23:04
  takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes
• 23:08
  that it may bear more fruit. Pruning is not a punishment.
• 23:16
  Pruning is preparation. It feels like something is being
• 23:21
  taken away, something that you need.
• 23:23
  Maybe it's a relationship that needs to end.
• 23:25
  Maybe it's a dream that's not unfolding in your timeline.
• 23:29
  In these moments, it feels like loss.
• 23:34
  But God could actually be removing from you what's keeping
• 23:39
  you from Him, pruning away the self-reliance that keeps you
• 23:45
  from experiencing the abundance that He wants to give you.
• 23:51
  God never cuts away what doesn't need to be cut.
• 23:55
  For me, that looked like a stable job.
• 24:01
  I'd gotten so comfortable. I think about this and I'm like
• 24:04
  cruising through life. It is comical.
• 24:07
  I'm just so happy. I'm just, yeah, this is great.
• 24:09
  Everything's amazing. Joy, carefree, everything
• 24:13
  handled on the inside. I'm building a life that is one
• 24:17
  bump away from pure collapse of stability, predictability in the
• 24:24
  name of a paycheck, and without realizing it, I stopped
• 24:29
  depending on God. The day the stable job
• 24:35
  disappeared, everything shifted. Joy turned into anxiety.
• 24:43
  Confidence turned into questions.
• 24:45
  I remember thinking, God, where are you?
• 24:51
  That job, that job had become my vine.
• 24:56
  My security wasn't in Jesus, it was in a paycheck.
• 25:04
  That time, that time was the time I found real dependence,
• 25:09
  real trust, real abiding, real focusing on the Christ, not
• 25:14
  because life had gotten stable, but I experienced Jesus being
• 25:19
  the source of my needs. If something is being stripped
• 25:25
  away, you have to ask, who do I trust?
• 25:29
  Do I trust myself that I can push through this and get
• 25:32
  through this and make it happen? Or do I trust God and call upon
• 25:38
  Him? God isn't pruning, pruning you
• 25:41
  because he wants to be disgusted with you.
• 25:45
  He's pruning you because he loves you.
• 25:48
  He says you already clean because of the words I have
• 25:52
  spoken. He's pruning you because he
• 25:55
  loves you so much that he doesn't want you to stay stuck
• 25:57
  in the self-reliance. Because on the other side of
• 26:03
  pruning is abundance, Not scarcity, not loss.
• 26:11
  His whole point isn't to take away, but to give.
• 26:17
  Look at verse 8 and 11 says by this my Father is glorified,
• 26:21
  that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples for
• 26:27
  these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and
• 26:32
  that your joy may be full. An overflowing life that is
• 26:38
  generally connected to the source, the source of all good
• 26:42
  things. Fruitful lives glorify God.
• 26:48
  Fruit in your lives prove prove to those watching that you're
• 26:52
  different. When people see you in patience
• 26:57
  and patient, that makes no sense.
• 27:00
  In circumstances that you should not be patient, that's fruit.
• 27:08
  When you have joy that isn't dependent on a life going well,
• 27:12
  that's fruit. Fruit you didn't manufacture,
• 27:18
  fruit you received. Because as you abide in Christ
• 27:24
  it continues to grow and become more abundant.
• 27:31
  That's the life Jesus is inviting you to.
• 27:34
  Not a life of addictions or self help where I got this mentality,
• 27:39
  but a life filled with purpose, joy, peace in all circumstances.
• 27:47
  When you trust him, his power, his spirit begins to work within
• 27:53
  you. Not self help, not try harder,
• 27:57
  not clean yourself up, not hope for the best.
• 28:01
  You don't have to manufacture purpose.
• 28:04
  You don't have to carry this alone.
• 28:09
  You receive what He's already done.
• 28:14
  Maybe you've heard in your life that if you don't pray enough,
• 28:17
  maybe you don't read your Bible enough.
• 28:20
  Maybe you don't serve enough. If you don't do these things,
• 28:23
  God is going to be disconnected to you.
• 28:25
  He's going to cut you off. That's not what He's teaching.
• 28:29
  Verse 2 says again, every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
• 28:33
  He takes away. The question isn't whether or
• 28:36
  not you're producing enough fruit.
• 28:38
  The real question is, are you connected to Him?
• 28:45
  Have you put your trust, your reliance in Jesus?
• 28:52
  Because when you're secure in that, you're free to just abide,
• 28:59
  not out of fear, not out of approval.
• 29:05
  He says you're already connected to Him, but maybe you're not.
• 29:14
  Maybe you're not connected to God because if you're here today
• 29:20
  and you've never actually put your trust in Jesus, your
• 29:24
  alliance in Jesus, let me tell you what that means.
• 29:29
  It means that you recognize that yourself reliance will never be
• 29:34
  enough. It will never save you.
• 29:36
  It will never get you to the end because you cannot produce the
• 29:41
  life that God requires to be connected to Him without
• 29:44
  someone's help. Jesus says apart from me you can
• 29:50
  do nothing, I can do nothing. But today, today He invites you
• 29:58
  to connect to Him, to receive the life that only He can give
• 30:06
  from a man who came to earth, who lived a sinless life so that
• 30:12
  when the time came he would be marched to a cross and crucified
• 30:20
  as a sacrifice for anyone who believes in Him.
• 30:27
  Romans 10/9 says if that you confess with your mouth that
• 30:31
  Jesus is Lord, and that you believe with all your life that
• 30:37
  he's been raised from the dead, that this was all true, that's
• 30:42
  it, that's what it takes. You will be saved.
• 30:48
  You'll be connected to God, connected to the source that
• 30:51
  gives true life. It seems simple, but there's
• 30:57
  people that sit in pews year after year who don't get this.
• 31:03
  Stop trusting in yourself. You have to trust in Him.
• 31:10
  I give you that opportunity today, right now.
• 31:15
  Everybody, let's take a moment. Let's close your eyes.
• 31:19
  We're going to pray. If you're willing to ask God for
• 31:26
  forgiveness, tell him, I can't do this.
• 31:33
  If you're willing to give your life to Christ, then take this
• 31:36
  moment to talk to God. Pray to him, say these words,
• 31:41
  say something similar, but this is between you and God.
• 31:45
  Pray Jesus. I know I'm a Sinner, I'm a
• 31:51
  messed up person. I cannot fix myself.
• 31:57
  I want you to save me. Give me the life that only you
• 32:03
  can give. Today I surrender to you.
• 32:10
  I receive your promise of forgiveness, adoption, your
• 32:15
  promise of eternal life. Jesus be my Lord.
• 32:24
  If you pray that for the very first time, would you be brave
• 32:28
  and raise your hand? Thank you, you can put your
• 32:34
  hands down in Jesus name, Amen. If today you surrendered
• 32:44
  yourself reliance, you gave your life to Christ.
• 32:48
  Welcome to the family of God. Your journey in a new life has
• 32:57
  just begun. There's tables on the back that
• 33:01
  say, I raise my hand during this last song that we're about to
• 33:05
  sing right now. Go to that table.
• 33:08
  Celebrate with those people. Let us take the first steps with
• 33:13
  you. If you're about to get baptized,
• 33:16
  now is the time to go to that corner table.
• 33:18
  These people are waving at you. Our prayer team is about to come
• 33:24
  up right now during our closing song.
• 33:31
  I encourage you to come. I encourage you to pray.
• 33:36
  Come pray about anything. Take that first step.
• 33:40
  The idea of I have everything put together.
• 33:43
  I have self-reliance and toss it.
• 33:48
  Come pray about something. Move as the Lord leads you.