Remaining in Christ: The Key to True Contentment

1. "And I just want to say thank you for joining us at all of our campuses for this history-making day. We are launching the Holdridge campus, like you just heard me say. But I just want to stop for a moment and just honor a group of people that, without their faithfulness, without their humility, without their sense of surrender to the lordship and the leading of the Holy Spirit in their life, we would not be celebrating the brand-new campus in Holdridge. And that's those who were formerly part of North Park Assembly who are sitting in the Holdridge campus right now. I'm not going to make you stand. I'm not going to embarrass you. But I just want everyone to know that if it wasn't for your visionary sacrifice, if it wasn't for your vote to merge, to merge with New Life, we would not be celebrating this brand-new campus in Holdridge." [21:56] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "I want to help you become the greatest followers of Jesus possible, but that means that we've got to learn how to listen to him. How to listen to Jesus. And by going to this passage of Scripture, not only do I want you to hear his words, but I want to teach you today a little formula that will help you understand his words so that you can apply it to your life. And I think that's why you're here today at all of our campuses. I think you're here because Jesus has something to say, and you want to learn what that is." [26:04] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "So what does it really mean to remain in him? It would mean this, to stay, to stay, to be close. To remain in him would be like you got enveloped in the embrace of Jesus and he's got his arms around you and you're like, and you're staying close to him. That's the picture that he gives us here. He doesn't give us this picture like, hey, just be in the same room with me. He doesn't say, hey, remain in me, meaning like, you know, just understand me, like read about me. No, no, he goes, look, it's more than that. I want you to be close to me. I want you to stay with me. In fact, I want you to be able to hear my heartbeat. I want you to know what I'm thinking. I want you to know my agenda. It's this close interaction that Jesus gives me." [28:17] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Because Jesus goes beyond that. And he goes, here's what I'm trying to say to you. I'm trying to say to you that remaining in me is the only thing that matters. It's the only thing that matters in life. I look around at this world and I just look at people and I go, man, we wrestle with being content. There's few people that are just relaxed in the presence of God. Most Christians are trying to put on a show for Jesus. They're trying to perform for him. They think that Jesus is looking at their life and if they do certain things just right, then Jesus is going to be happy with them. And so they lack contentment. And Jesus is trying to say to us through this passage, hey, look, I just want you guys to know the most important thing in life is for you learning to remain in me." [33:01] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Whenever you're living life out of this independent, self-reliant mindset, let me tell you something. That attitude leads to something that you don't want. It leads to being spiritually and emotionally weak. Because when you're disconnected from, you're not remaining in Christ. Now you've gotta generate all the energy. You've gotta generate all the passion. You have to generate all the purpose. And any time you're living life with you having to generate it all, you're draining something. You're draining your emotional health, and you're definitely draining your spiritual health. And then you're left with nothing. So Jesus says, look, I want you guys. I want Jeff Baker. I want all of you. I want you to produce amazing things. I want you to produce great things, but you can't do it unless you're connected to me." [35:32] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Here's the problem with most Christians. We believe in Jesus, but we don't know how to remain in Jesus. And so to remain in Jesus means this, that you have to pursue him with all of your heart and with all of your mind. And what we want to do is we want to give God a percentage of our life. You'll never remain in him, church, when you're just giving him Sunday. You don't remain in him that way. Jesus says this, remain in me, but you got to choose it, which means you got to go all in. That means like throughout the day, here's something I've been practicing more in my life. I just want to pull back the veil in Jeff Baker's life." [38:32] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "See, the enemy wants to get in there, and he doesn't want you to remain in the love of God. And there's a big reason for that. Because when you remain in the love of God, that's where true contentment comes from. And when you remain in the love of God, then you want to obey the love of God. The enemy doesn't want you to obey the love of God. Because when you obey the love of God, guess what happens? It's a cyclical cycle. When you obey the love of God, you remain in the love of God. When you're in the love of God, you want to obey the Lord. It's just a cycle that happens, and the enemy doesn't want that for your life." [43:22] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "To be a Christian means you're going to stand out and you're going to look different than the world. Get used to it. Your beliefs are going to be different. Your lifestyle is going to be different. You're going to have hope in the midst of chaos. And when everyone else is going doom and gloom, you're going to still have hope. You're going to have joy when others have sorrow. You're going to show love when others show hate. You're going to be generous when everyone else is thinking about themselves. This is what it looks like to be a Christian who remains in Christ. So get used to it. When you remain in Jesus, you're going to look different. This is what a Christian does. This is what your life was designed to look like." [46:22] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "You're smart. You're amazing. You're incredible. You're advanced. You have all kinds of resources and tools. God's given you all kinds of things. But when you try to live your life outside of being connected to him, remaining in him, then here's what happens. You have to dim the screen. You have to shut down some of the apps. You lose joy. You lose peace. You lose some love. You lose a little bit of what God designed you to be. And you try to get by. And then all of a sudden you completely are dead. You hate the world. You hate everyone around you. You got a bad attitude. But then you come to church and you plug the door. You plug back in. You're like, I'm feeling good. But then you walk out of the doors at 25% and you think you can make it through the week, but you can't make it through the week. And you're on power save mode and it's just not working out well." [51:14] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "Whenever you see your cell phone, whenever you watch that battery draining, I want you to think about your spiritual life. I want you to think this is just like me. And if I don't stay, if I don't remain in him, remain in his world, remain in prayer, remain in communication with him, remain in fellowship with him, remain in fellowship with other believers. If I don't do that, I'm going to get drained. And if I get drained and this battery dies, I'm worthless. One of the things that Jesus gave us to remain in him though was communion. And today when you came in the doors, you were given our communion elements." [52:02] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)