Untitled Sermon (4)

Intro: What does it mean to love someone? What all goes into a relationship when it comes to love specifically? Especially marriage? Now, I’m not going to be speaking directly on love seeing as I myself am not married, nor in a dating relationship, but I still have friendships and relationships with people around me, people I love. But why do I love them? Why do you love your friends and family? How do you exemplify the love you have for these people? Are we just in these friendships and relationships for what we get out of them, benefits-wise? I doubt it. When it comes to marriage, we have a basis for a definition we need to look at in order to understand why we commit ourselves to people, especially in marriage. According to relationshiprescueacademy, marriage is, “...the sharing of two lives, bonding their spirits, bodies and souls in union…” A marriage relationship is committing your life to someone else. You no longer live for yourself, caring for only your needs, seeking after your own wants, but you take into account the needs, wants, and hardships of the other person, and you do so through love. All this to say, relationships are not for our own gain, but for the investment in each other’s lives, and letting each other speak into each other’s lives. Jesus is the most important relationship we could ever have. Jesus is more valuable and vital than any other relationship because it’s a relationship with our Creator, our Savior, our Lord, our God! Jesus came and gave His life so that we could have a relationship with Him, bonding our spirit with His Spirit, our lives become His as He fills us with life!

Transition: Having a relationship with Jesus is the best gift and privilege we can receive, but it’s vital to understand that being one with Christ means more than just saying I believe and going on living life. As When we accept Jesus into our lives, we believe in His death, resurrection, deity, power, and Spirit; that He will come into our lives to renew our hearts, minds, and spirits. But in order for this change to happen, we can’t become comfortable with the modern day “faith” that so many professing christians claim to have. Having a relationship with Christ means following Christ, and following Christ means growing in Christ. Having a relationship with Jesus means intentionally growing in Christ. 1 Peter 1:13-16 says: “So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” God has called for us to live holy lives, and this requires more than just wearing the title of being a Christian, it means letting Jesus redeem our lives to become holy as He is, and what does this require of us? Intentionality.

But how do we intentionally grow in Christ? Today, I want us to dive into 3 practices that are vital for implementing into our lives. These practices need to become a lifestyle of daily living to grow intentionally in our relationship with Jesus, and the first of these practices we’re looking at is…

The Practice of Discipline

Discipline, according to wordnik, is, “Training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.” When we look at discipline through the lens of Christ and how He desires for us to live, we need to see the life we have lived before Jesus came into the picture. Sinners, living for our own selfish desires as Peter had said. We were driven by our flesh and nature to please ourselves and act upon anything we felt. But now as we intentionally seek to grow in Christ, we must understand that we no longer can live like this, otherwise we will not take Peter’s warning of slipping back into our old ways. Practicing discipline looks like going out of our natural way of being feeling-driven to examining the will of God and aiming to abide by that which He calls for us to live. It’s stopping ourselves from committing actions, speaking words, or dwelling on thoughts that are natural responses from our previous life and now training ourselves in Christ to do as God has commanded. In Hebrews 12:1-4, we read, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin.” As we practice discipline based on the glorious example given to us by Jesus, we build an endurance in our faith that shifts our natural tendencies to abide with God’s will. Discipline is difficult at first, but as we look to Jesus as our example of how to properly endure through trial and punishment, we can see that He put the natural feelings from being flesh and bone to the side for the sake of accomplishing His plan to redeem humanity from its sin. We can use Jesus’ example as a foundation to work off of when we seek to build a daily practice of discipline. And as we grow in discipline, we take on the character of Christ through Jesus and begin to live the lifestyle God told us to when He said to be holy as He is holy.

Transition: With the practice of discipline, we develop the habits that Jesus wants us to in order to look more like Him. Discipline is necessary for our relationship with Christ because we won’t always feel like seeking Jesus or spending time with Him, worshiping Him, growing in our knowledge of Him; but with discipline, we renew our mind to not be emotionally driven to follow whatever our feelings want, but we recognize our need for intentionality in Christ, and we pursue Christ based on this new mindset. But discipline isn’t just something we develop. Discipline is very difficult to carry out because it requires consistency and intentionality as we’ve said. This brings us to our second practice that is vital for intentionally growing in Christ…

The Practice of Determination

Have you ever played a sport? A few of us may have played sports for our school, whether that be football, basketball, swim team, etc. My sport was wrestling though. I wrestled all through high school, and when I say wrestling is difficult, I know there are many who can testify to that as well. In my freshman year when I first began, I finished with only 2 wins, and that was discouraging. I was ready to give up, but I was pressed by my coach and family to keep pushing through. I wrestled my sophomore year, and some things began to click. My Junior year came along, and I set the goal in mind to wrestle for my varsity letter, which required 10 varsity wins during the season. I was determined to achieve this. So determined, I would drop 9 pounds of water weight a week (and gain it back over the weekend) to weigh in for a weight class that I could compete with my teammates on for the varsity position, and then we’d have to wrestle for it, and then if I got the varsity spot, I’d have to go and actually wrestle other varsity kids from other schools. Not only was this draining for me, but it was super unhealthy with how I’d lose the weight to make it. I’d often drop a few pounds during practice, and if I didn’t like where I was at the end, I’d get home, throw a trash bag on and a few layers of hoodies and sweatpants, and I’d go for a 2 mile run out in the winter. Along with this were other gross and unhealthy methods I used. But all this to say I was determined to get that varsity letter. I had the goal set in mind, and I was going to do what it took to achieve that goal.

Our relationship with Jesus should be the same. In Philippians 3:12-14, Paul says, “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Paul was speaking on the life he was called to live by Christ, to know God, to partake in Jesus’ suffering, hardship, death, that he may also partake in rising again with Christ. Paul hadn’t yet achieved these goals, but he was determined to get them. He was persistent with his mindset of pushing through the pain, hardship, and trials in order to live the life Christ called him to. We need to practice this same mindset and behavior in our own lives. We cannot intentionally grow in Christ building discipline without being determined to achieve that which Christ calls us to. Determination is setting your mind to a goal and pursuing that goal no matter how difficult the journey may be.

Transition: So we’ve looked at 2 practices we need to implement into our lives in order to live intentionally for Jesus, these being the practice of discipline and the practice of determination. And with determination, we can create a mindset on building the habits that result in discipline that we may begin to reflect a lifestyle pleasing to Christ, but determination isn’t something we can just decide to be… at least for this circumstance. The important thing to understand in our relationship with Christ is that we can’t get to that goal we’re striving for alone, and we’re not supposed to, this sets us up for a 3rd and final practice we need in order to live that intentional life…

The Practice of Dependance

If we are truly desiring to take our relationship with Jesus seriously, we need to give up this tendency to try and fix/do everything on our own. We enter this relationship with Jesus with 2 polar opposites, we either seem to think that Jesus is going to do all the work and I can just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride, living comfortably while waiting for Jesus to change my life after I said I believe in Him. Or we seem to think that now we have to do all the work ourselves. We just accepted Christ, but now we have to obey His commands tirelessly, making sure we’re a good person and trying to fix our life on our own. And the reality is that none of these views are right. One of them is ignorance of intentionally depending on Jesus, which resolves to laziness and a lack of spiritual transformation, and the other is self independence that we can save ourselves essentially through the means of doing all the works, keeping all the commands, and letting Jesus do none of it. When we accept Jesus into our lives, we’re giving Him permission to have His way in us, which means He will renew our spirit, heart, and mind. But we also have to continuously surrender ourselves to Jesus, trusting that He will have His way, and when His Spirit convicts us of a need for change in a certain area of our lives, we press on intentionally to make that change, but we do so with depending on Jesus to strengthen and empower us for that change, which comes down to the heart… “am I really desiring that Jesus changes me for the better, even if it’s difficult? Am I going to trust Him with the difficult decisions that need to be made?” Hebrews 10:22-23 tells us, “let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.” God has promised to us that if we allow Him to have His way in our lives, He will make a change that renews us into a new creation that is ever growing into the likeness and image of Christ. But this means we must trust God fully, with sincere hearts. We need to depend on Jesus to work in our lives, convicting our spirits, renewing our thoughts and patterns, and trusting that He will strengthen us with the power and determination needed to make those changes happen.

Conclusion: When we have decided to commit ourselves to Christ and believe in Him with all our hearts, we must give Him control of our lives, for we are naturally driven away from Him due to our sinful nature. We must let His Spirit intertwine with ours to produce a new work in our hearts and minds so we can be transformed into His likeness. As we accept Him into our hearts, we give Him permission to have His way, and through practicing depending on Him more for our needs and transformation, we are given strength to persist against the sinful nature that fights for our souls. We are able to practice determination against our desire to fall back to our old lives, and with that determination, we build a life of practicing discipline. This discipline creates new habits and ultimately a new lifestyle that reflects the character of Christ we’re called to exemplify. Having a relationship with Christ is not proclaiming to believe and accept Him and then going about as if nothing happened. If we truly accept Him, we are giving permission for Him to have His way in our lives, and with that comes work that needs to be done, but we are not doing it alone thankfully. Christ has promised to be with us in every way to accomplish this life He wishes for us to live. I encourage you today to not continue to bask and simply enjoy the comfortable life you have, but to actively seek intentionality in your relationship with Christ. If you’re willing to pour yourself out and become selfless in your friendships, relationships, marriages, etc. for another person, then Jesus should make us more willing than ever. We are called to holy living, but holy living doesn’t just happen magically, it requires discipline in your life, and discipline requires a determined mindset to achieve that lifestyle, and determination requires fully depending and trusting in God to work that change in our lives and empower us to live the life He is calling us to.