God’s Part & My part in Growing in Christ
Notes
Transcript
Handout
As we proceed through the new year, we want to prepare you for live the life God has for you in 2024. So let me ask,
How many of you beside me would like to change something this year in your life? Your situation? If you can’t think of anything that needs to change, ask your spouse.
We all need to change something, but all too often, we just don’t know how to make the changes that deep down we know we need to change.
Some need to change some habits: work habits; addictions; family time;
I’e been in churches that would say when you ask, don’t ask again because it’s done. Other churches say, keep pressing in and holding on until you break through. Which way is right?
When it comes to our spiritual growth, God has a part and You have a part.
When it comes to our spiritual growth, God has a part and You have a part.
12 Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. 13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
IOW Live like you are saved. You don’t work to get saved, you work hard to show you are saved. When people look at you and I, the need to see someone different than the rest of the people. Our thoughts, words and actions should look different.
Paul says we are to obey God with deep reverence and fear. He is not talking about the kind of fear that prevalent in our culture. He is talking about a reverence or respect. It’s a healthy fear.
Look what he says. Philippians 2:13 “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” God gives us the desire to do what he wants. Many people think they have to give up things that are fun to follow Jesus. That’s not so.
Someone once said, I don’t want to follow Jesus because then I can’t go party, and sleep around and do all sorts of stuff. If you are a Christian, you can’t do anything fun.
Person answered. Sure I can. I can do anything I want to do. But I don’t want to do that stuff anymore.
God changes our “want to’s” and then gives us the strength to do what those new want to’s are.
Maybe you are here today and you do not feel like you have the power to change anything in 2024. You are right. You don’t! but God does, and He says he will give you the power.
I want to give you three tools that God gives us to grow and then three choices that we have to make to see the kind of change in our lives we want to see.
3 Tools God Uses in Your Life
3 Tools God Uses in Your Life
1. God uses the Bible to help us grow.
1. God uses the Bible to help us grow.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.
The WOG will change your life. How do I know? It’s changed mine. it changes the way you think, it changes the way you speak, it changes the way you act.
Read it. Study it. Meditate on it. Memorize it. The more of the WOG you get in you, the better.
You may feel like your faith is weak, get into the WOG.
2. God uses the Holy Spirit to help us grow.
2. God uses the Holy Spirit to help us grow.
The WOG is great, but we need more. We need help to understand it and to act on it. We need the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to take his place. Jesus gives us His Spirit. Check this out.
11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you and me.
18 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
The Holy Spirit’s job is to make us more and more like Jesus. Let me say it like this.
God’s plan for you is to become more like Jesus.
God’s plan for you is to become more like Jesus.
To become more like Jesus, God wants to fill us with the Holy Spirit like he did in Acts 2:2-4
2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.
You can read all through Acts what the spirit filled life looked like. He gave people power to be witnesses, to perform miracles, to endure hardship and even persecution. Living life full of the Holy Spirit should be the normal Christian life. Look what Paul said in Eph 5:18
18 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit,
Don’t let yourself be controlled by anything but the HS. We are to be filled with the HS. The HS is not goofy. He is God, the 3rd person of the Trinity. I know we have seen many examples of goofy, but he is not. He is powerful and wants you to walk in His power.
3. God will use circumstances to help us grow.
3. God will use circumstances to help us grow.
This is like the hammer. We didn’t listen to the word, or the Spirit, so a little pain is needed to help us to change. Sometimes we need a little pain to change.
There are natural consequences that begin to occur when we step out of God’s Will for our lives. We step out of his blessings, his protection, and his provision. Then the problems just start to pile up. Even when we miss it, God will take what we have done and gone and use it for our good and His Glory. Look what Paul said in Rom 8:28-29
28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
God doesn’t cause troubles to come our way, even though often people tend to blame him. We live in a world where God gave us free will to make choices and often times we make the wrong choice or someone else makes a bad choice that impacts us negatively. God can take those and bring good out of them.
Here is an attitude changing statement I want you to write down.
Nothing can come into your life without God’s permission.
Nothing can come into your life without God’s permission.
The devil doesn’t have free reign to do anything he wants to you. If he did, he would have killed you before you became a Christian. He has to ask God to let him mess with us. Job
Now listen, it doesn’t matter where the troubles come from; yourself, others, the devil, God can and will bring good out of them.
Jesus learned through suffering, why do we think we would be any different? His earthly father died leaving him to help raise younger siblings; his own family didn’t believe him at first; he was betrayed by friends; he was victim of a crooked trial and was executed.
So God will work to change you through your circumstances.
Now let’s look at my part in changing or growing.
Three Choices we have to make.
Three Choices we have to make.
1. I can choose what I think about.
1. I can choose what I think about.
Growing in our relationship with Jesus requires us to make a decision to do so. One of the big choices we have to make is what we think about.
23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
We are what is in our heart so we have to guard it. Our heart, or our feelings of love and desire, dictate to a great extent how we live because we always find time to do what we enjoy. Solomon tells us to guard it so that we concentrate on the desires that will keep us on the right path.
What’s in our hearts leads to thoughts which lead to actions. You might not be all you think you are, but you are what you think.
If we want change in our lives, it begins with our thoughts.
23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. 25 So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body.
Change always begins with new thinking.
Change always begins with new thinking.
What do we need to do? We need to repent. Repent simply means to change your mind, or the way you think.
Paul said this in Romans 12:1-2
1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
We no longer have to die because of our sins, Jesus did that. So Paul tells us to be a living sacrifice which means that every day, I lay aside my desires to follow him, putting all my energy and resources at His disposal and trusting him to guide me.
Think → Feel → Act
Think → Feel → Act
If you want to change the way you act, you have to change the way you think.
If you want to change the way you act, you have to change the way you think.
Paul wrote this 2,000 years before Psychology found it to be true as well. There is no action without a thought and a feeling behind it. If you are depressed, it’s because you are thinking depressing thoughts. If you are angry, it’s because you are thinking angry thoughts.
The kind of transformation Paul is talking about is like a plane on autopilot. You can turn it manually, but it will go back to the programed course. When we allow the WOG to change the way we think, we reprogram the Auto Pilot. so,
Fill your mind with the Word of God.
Fill your mind with the Word of God.
Check out these scriptures.
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
8 Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.
Choose what to think about, but more than that, allow God to change the way you think and what you think about. Next, God gives us the Holy Spirit, so
2. I can choose to depend on the Holy Spirit.
2. I can choose to depend on the Holy Spirit.
4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. 5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
A branch is totally dependent on it’s connection to the vine or trunk for it’s nourishment. If it’s not connected, it dies.
Jesus is saying the same thing about us. If you and I are not connected to Him the same way, we will die spiritually. God has the power, so we need to stay connected to him.
God’s power requires us to be plugged into the Holy Spirit so that His power will flow through us.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
God wants to produce fruit in you and I, the fruit of New Believers, The Fruit of the Spirit, and the fruit of miracles, but fruit is an inside job, You have to have the Holy Spirit in you and be plugged in to produce fruit.
If you were to take a dead tree and try to fasten some fruit onto it, the fruit will die, it doesn’t work. That’s what a lot of people do. They are dead but they try to do a lot of good things to make it look like they are alive and growing spiritually. But they are not depending on god.
How do you know if you are depending on God?
Pray all the time.
Pray about everything.
Pray the Word.
Read the Word for what God has to say to you.
Tithing.
3. I can choose my response to my circumstances.
3. I can choose my response to my circumstances.
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
God made us on His image so that means he gave us the ability to choose. Someone once said,
Life is 10% what happens to you; 90% how you respond.
Life is 10% what happens to you; 90% how you respond.
The Christian life is not a one time event. It’s a process of growing daily through trials and troubles that come our way. As you exercise your faith, your faith becomes stronger.
I always like to say it this way.
God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
We have a choice. I have seen people in horrible circumstances do well and others do not. Let God work in you.
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
We become stronger as we go through the trials and difficult times.
Mature character is character that has passed the test and proven reliable.
Mature character is character that has passed the test and proven reliable.
Character is the goal. God wants you and I to be more like Jesus so our character has to pass some tests and then be proven reliable.
God wants to produce fruit in our lives, but… …
To learn be more loving, you have to be around unlovable people.
To have more joy, you will go through difficult times and learn that joy is different from happiness.
To develop peace, you may be in chaotic circumstances,
To develop goodness, you will be tempted to do bad things.
To learn more self control, he will have you come to a River Church Pot-Luck,
13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
God promises to give us both the desire to change and the power to make those changes.
God promises to give us both the desire to change and the power to make those changes.
Tools God use on us: Word, Spirit, Circumstances
Choices we have to make: what we think about; depend on HS; Choose our response to circumstances.
Let me ask, what is it that you want to change in 2024?