Touré Roberts - Tapped In

I want to talk today about being «tapped in,» about being tapped in. And you know, for some, perhaps 2020 made you want to tap out. Come on, somebody, anybody just want to tap out of 2020? But the Lord spoke something to me, and we’re going to unpack it. I’m going to be teaching today, and really, it is now more about a time to tap in and not tap out, because God is not finished with you. He’s not finished with America; he’s not finished with Asia; he’s not finished with Africa; he’s not finished with Europe; he’s not finished with the world. In fact, I believe that many things we’ve experienced this year were to position us and prepare us for what this is really about. So, I want to draw your attention really quickly to John chapter 15. We’re going to read one verse there for now, and you’ve heard this verse before; it’s been preached a gazillion times, but we’re going to dig into it a little deeper. We’ll pray and then we’ll get right into this teaching.

John 15:5 says, and these are the words of Jesus as He speaks: «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.» Father, thank you so much for this moment. Thank you for your word; it’s a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Your word is light; it feeds us, it edifies us, it builds us.

So, Father, I pray for me first. I pray that you would give me the spirit of wisdom, revelation, insight, knowledge, and prophecy, full use of all of Heaven’s resources to be a blessing to your people. And God, I pray for your people that their eyes of understanding will be enlightened, that you would remove every distraction, God. I pray that people who never even intended to hear this message would hear it, that it would be passed along and shared, and it would minister to your sons and daughters to the depths of their souls. I just believe that you’re going to do great things and powerful things. We love you and claim the victory already for what this word is going to produce in our lives. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen. Amen. Amen.

If you sense breakthrough already, even before the word has been preached, I dare you to claim it by faith. Put it in the comments right now: «I receive breakthrough.» Come on, just say, «I receive breakthrough, I receive breakthrough, I receive breakthrough,» because breakthrough absolutely is here. God bless you again; it’s so wonderful to be with you. We’re talking about being tapped in, and I’ll unpack that quite a bit today. But I was just thinking about what the majority of people want in life. At the end of the day, what most people want in life is to be able to move forward in some way, to survive, to overcome, to do better, to win in life. Every thinking person wants to progress; we’re working for it, right? Many of us are working very hard for it. We’re being educated for it; we’re learning for it. We’re pursuing this progress through various means of learning and education; many of us are making sacrifices; we want to move ahead.

Now, others of lesser character are cutting corners for progress; they’re taking shortcuts for progress. They’re scheming, manipulating, and sometimes even lying and stealing, etc. But at the end of the day, most people fundamentally are wired to pursue progress, even if, in their mind, it’s just the progress of surviving. In the text, Jesus simplifies the path to progress in very direct terms and tells us how to make progress—a guaranteed reality in our lives—using an analogy of a vine and branches. In fact, He calls it fruitfulness. And it’s interesting because we think that we work our way into progress, and so we often assume that the path to progress is an activity. Yet here, Jesus ultimately is saying that the path to progress is more about positioning than it is about activity. We’re going to talk about that.

In the text right here, in these three sentences, Jesus reverse engineers the process to true progress and provides the structure and a system for progress that, if anyone applies it, they will undoubtedly be successful, prosperous, significant, and, to use the term that Jesus uses, fruitful. So, let’s dig into this further and start with the structure of progress according to what Jesus talks about. First of all, in the text, we’re going to notice that Jesus deals with the infrastructure of progress first. Stay with me; you’re going to get this. So, here we go. Jesus says in the text, «I am the vine; you are the branches.» Here, He uses this symbolism, and we will get into it more, but He’s saying that He’s the vine, and you and I are the branches. But then, in an earlier verse, He breaks that structure down even further and introduces us to a new layer of this structure of progress. Let’s go to John chapter 15, verse 1. I want you to see this. So, let’s work backward. We’re going to reverse engineer this thing. We’re trying to get to fruitfulness, right? He says we will achieve fruitfulness if we…