GROWING!!! PART 1

GROWING!!1 PART 1

Part 1

AND NOW, JUST AS YOU ACCEPTED CHRIST JESUS AS YOUR LORD, YOU MUST CONTINUE TO FOLLOW HIM.

LET YOUR ROOTS GROW DOWN INTO HIM, AND LET YOUR LIVES BE BUILT ON HIM. THEN YOUR FAITH WILL GROW STRONG IN THE TRUTH YOU WERE TAUGHT, AND YOU WILL OVERFLOW WITH THANKFULNESS.

INTRODUCTION

Good evening, Southpointe!! We are going to look at the next few week growing and being rooted in Christ.

The key thought tonight is, “Circumstances can be difficult, but if you determine to bury your roots into Jesus and grow, God will shatter your circumstances by the depth that He produces in you.”

Our first message in this series is called “Rooted” and is about growing through struggle.

There’s some basic things here that we need to look at:

Look at what Apostle Paul said:

AND NOW, JUST AS YOU ACCEPTED CHRIST JESUS AS YOUR LORD, YOU MUST CONTINUE TO FOLLOW HIM

Rooted

Part 1

AND NOW, JUST AS YOU ACCEPTED CHRIST JESUS AS YOUR LORD, YOU MUST CONTINUE TO FOLLOW HIM.

LET YOUR ROOTS GROW DOWN INTO HIM, AND LET YOUR LIVES BE BUILT ON HIM. THEN YOUR FAITH WILL GROW STRONG IN THE TRUTH YOU WERE TAUGHT, AND YOU WILL OVERFLOW WITH THANKFULNESS.

Series Overview

Organic is a series about growing through struggle and perseverance. It will be incredibly easy to make these messages sound exactly alike. The focus that will separate each one is the illustration that gives imagery to the message. For example: Rooted = tree roots, Planted = dirt, Thrive = valley. Please revolve your entire message around this imagery and orbit it with each point. It’s in this season that students will want to punk out because mental exhaustion and are more likely to fall away from Jesus. That’s why it’s vital that we value personal growth.

WEEK 1: Rooted

Our first message in this series is called “Rooted” and is about growing through struggle.

The key thought is, “Circumstances can be difficult, but if you determine to bury your roots into Jesus and grow, God will shatter your circumstances by the depth that he produces in you.” That said, the win is to see students reload at the altars rather than recommit.

Key Scriptures

God works out all things for the good of those that love Him. ~

Stand firm, and you will win life. ~

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are confused at times, but we’re not going to worrying about it. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. ~

Main Points

1) You can only grow as high as your roots are deep.

- Many of us want to grow in God, but unless we are rooted deeper, it can’t happen.

- Your circumstances are hard, your struggle is hard, your life is hard. And yet, God still expects us to grow.

- (Picture of a tree growing out of a rock)

- Trees can grow anywhere, perhaps the hardest place for a tree to grow is in a rock. While the tree cannot actually grow out of bare rock, it can begin to grow from small amounts of soil and debris that collect in pockets of the rock.

- God has created you to bury your roots so deep into the difficulty of your circumstances that your growth in God shatter them beneath you!

Story of Daniel

- Daniel was royalty. He was well-educated, good-looking, at the top of his class. His walk with God was phenomenal. As a teenager, the nation of Babylon invaded Israel, where he lived, and took captive all the best and brightest away back to Babylon…including him.

His nose was pierced with a ring, and attached to that ring was as chain, and they led him away like a dog on a leash by that chain.

- Now at that moment, we would be saying, “God, I don’t deserve this. I’ve followed you, I’ve done everything right."

- But Daniel was different, instead of complaining he stepped up.

- While he was in Babylon, he dug deeper into his walk with God, and as a result, became one of the most respected, richest, and highest-seated people in the same country that took him captive. He, in essence, ruled over the same people that took him captive.

2) The greatest dreams grow from the hardest of circumstances.

- God works out all things for the good of those that love Him. ~

- Somehow that tree manages to sink its roots into tiny crevices to get a toehold. Then it draws every bit of nourishment it can--water that seeps into those cracks, minerals from the rock-whatever it can find to sustain itself.

- Over time, it grows strong and sends its roots into the rock itself, causing the rock to split and making it appear that the tree has sprung from within the rock instead of from its surface.

- And this is what it looks like...

- (Picture of a tree splitting a rock)

- You don’t need a way out of your situation, you need a way through, and the only way through is to bury your roots deep into Jesus.

3) Your ability to grow your roots deep into the dirt of your situation will cause you to grow above it.

- You're like that tree. You sink your roots into whatever you can find to nourish you.

- In every difficult circumstance is always a way to grow. Break that rock instead of letting it break you

- Tonight, we don’t come to the altars to recommit; we come to the altars to reload.

- Stand firm, and you will win life. ~

Receiving Christ is not the end but the beginning of life.

The foundation which you are standing on right after you are saved is just the foundation. That foundation is strong but it is just beginning of building your house. YOU

So to start building on that foundation, you must open your mind to receive the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

So Apostle Paul gives the Colossians three guiding principles to build on that foundation.

As you received so live.

This is a summons to live out the Christian life in the sense of:

That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

Apostle Paul’s teachings was that when you received Christ, you were to live a worthy walk in the paths of righteousness.

So the key words here would be “as you received”

To receive Christ Jesus is to recognize the truth that Christ is the Lord and He has the power to redeem the world because of the works of the cross.

And more than that those words imply the need of submission to the Lord for personal deliverance.

This means that “life in the Spirit” is recognizing and acknowledging Christ’s Lordship.

Our challenge is to make Christ Lord in all our affairs.

True conversion is recognizing the right Christ has to be my Savior.

Being willing to submit to chastenings and corrections is all evidence that Christ is exercising His Lordship in our life.

2. As you were rooted be built up.

LET YOUR ROOTS GROW DOWN INTO HIM, AND LET YOUR LIVES BE BUILT ON HIM.

This is a summons to grow in Christ. It immediately reminds us that the building up of young Christians is a major concern.

I think one major rule should be this in our walk with God and each other.

Well, my brothers and sisters, let's summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.

That one major rule: I want to pull out of this verse: But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.

You see the building up of one another should be our chief concern.

We are not in the tearing down business but in the building up business.

When people are rooted in Christ, when people are planted in Christ then their lives will be built on Him.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Seek the things of God, not the things on earth.

So rooting must be in Christ, and if so then the growing will be in Him also.

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.

And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.

And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

If you are rooted in Christ then you will be built up that is bearing good fruit.

3. As you were taught be established in truth.

THEN YOUR FAITH WILL GROW STRONG IN THE TRUTH YOU WERE TAUGHT, AND YOU WILL OVERFLOW WITH THANKFULNESS.

This is a call to a deeper Christian understanding.Apostle Paul gives us a urgent need to grow up to our full stature.

To be established in truth is to be grounded in the truth.

The measurement of your growth in base on how you are taught.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

4. Overflowing with thanksgiving.

Apostle Paul ends with this phrase. Overflowing with thanksgiving.

Those who follow God’s call are to be overflowing with thanksgiving.

You hear constantly this statement overflowing, overflowing life, and abundant life.

Paul believed in the fullness of the believers. He believed Christians cup should be running over.

But the element that Paul was dealing with was one of thanksgiving.

Tob e bursting with thankfulness is a true witness of the Spirit within us. for the voice of thanksgiving speaks without ceasing of the goodness of God.

It claims nothing. It sees no merit in man’s receiving but only God’s giving.

It marvel as God’s mercy. It is the language of joy just because it need to look no longer to its own resources.

It is an expression of dependence on another. The finest test of one spiritual growth is to be filled with gratitude.

To be filled with gratitude is to be filled with the Spirit of Christ.

A Christian rejoice in the blessing of God with a thankful heart and will have their eyes fixed upon the right person and the right place which is Christ at God’s right hand.

You see, Christian that growing in Christ will not look upon themselves thinking would at what I have done, and look what I have gotten, but instead he will always be overflowing with thanksgiving because he knows everything he possesses is a gift of God.

There’s a old saying: The only thing which I can claim to be filled with which comes from me and which I can offer to God is gratitude.

The key thought is, “Circumstances can be difficult, but if you determine to bury your roots into Jesus and grow, God will shatter your circumstances by the depth that he produces in you.” That said, the win is to see students reload at the altars rather than recommit.

That said, the win is to see students reload at the altars rather than recommit.