Discovering MCRH - Part 2 - GROW

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Discovering McCleary Rock Harbor

Part 2 – “Grow”

1 Peter 2:1-3

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-27

Mark 2:1-13

Pastor Kyle Wisdom

I. Recap

a. What membership is

i. Synopsis

1. Strategically placed believers to reach communities

b. Our story

i. Shared how God has provided over and over again throughout so many changes and He has led and taken care of our church and will continue to!

c. LEARN

i. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for….

ii. Teaching

iii. Reproof

iv. Correction

v. Training in Righteousness

vi. So that… we are made adequate and equipped for every good work

d. Knowledge is nothing if not applied in action

II. Today

a. Today we are going to be talking about GROWTH!

b. The learning that we learned about last week should lead to growth.

c. Feeding ourselves with the Word of God, remember we discussed last week how discipleship, how training up in righteousness is all about our spiritual nourishment.

d. What happens when something is nourished? It doesn’t just sit there and do nothing, no that nourishment promotes and causes growth.

e. Look at a couple of pictures here:

i. Growth chart

1. Did you ever have one of these?

2. Capturing how much each kid grows from year to year with the pencil marks on the wall, etc…

3. Some kids standing on their tippy toes trying to make it look like they’ve grown more than they actually have 😊

ii. Or check this out – plant growth stages.

iii. Today, as we talk about growth, think about the process for plants growing. Starting out as a small seed, getting planted in the proper soil, watered properly, the right sunlight, etc…

iv. There are very key and specific stages for each part of the growth process for plants, isn’t there?

f. We, too, have different stages of our growth as Christ followers.

g. The seed is planted when we hear the Word of God and when we believe in that message of the gospel and put our faith in Jesus, that seed starts to grow and our lives begin to grow and become fruitful.

h. Here are some things we need to always remember:

i. Trust God as He is the gardener. Not all fruit produces at the same rate and in the same seasons, does it?

1. I wish I could walk outside and get fresh, juicy raspberries in the middle of January but that isn’t happening in Washington state 😊

ii. Have patience

iii. Don’t run when you don’t see the fruit right away

1. Before the seed every rises up out of the soil, before it ever bears fruit, there are important and integral steps taking place underneath the soil where we can’t see what’s going on. But again, trust God, He is nourishing and nurturing you to ensure you are growing in those important, foundational areas of your life.

i. I think, often times, we want to take the fast track to spiritual growth, skipping over some of those vital first stages in order to get to the “fun part”, right?

j. But what God does in those early foundational stages of our Christian growth are essential in order to make sure that we are standing firm on the foundation of Jesus Christ and His Word rather than trying to stand on the foundation of our gifts, charisma, energy and fruitfulness. Those are all good things, but they need to be properly planted and grounded, right?

k. So as we get ready to read some Scripture today, I want to give you all, all of us, some advice: enjoy and appreciate what God is doing, even in the stages where we may not see the fruit just quite yet. If an apple tree grew apples the day after it was planted, the tree wouldn’t be able to bear the weight of that fruit, would it? God has things He wants to instill in us in the early stages of our walk with Christ. This is called “the milk of the Word” for when we are new to following Christ, there are things we need to help us become “upright” so to speak before we get into some of the heavier lifting of what it means to follow Christ.

l. It’s a growing process.

m. And this truly is a time of joy, all stages of following Christ are. What He is doing in you today is to prepare you for tomorrow. So enjoy TODAY!

n. We are going to refer to a few different passages of Scripture, but we’re going to start with 1 Peter 2:1-3 as it is a great place to start to link what we have discussed thus far.

III. Read

a. 1 Peter 2:1-3 “Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”

IV. Big Idea

a. We grow in our faith when we learn from God’s Word and by taking part in fellowship as His church.

V. Pray

VI. Where it all begins

a. That passage we just read is all about the beginning of our new life. It is about our rebirth which Jesus talks about with Nicodemus (being born again, John 3).

b. I mentioned last week how we are all in different life stages as Christ followers. And I think that is a very beautiful thing because God works in those stages not just in the life of the person in that stage but in others because as we talked about we are a body of believers uniquely placed here in McCleary, WA to know Christ and to make Christ known to others.

c. It is often recommended and modeled that we as Christ followers do life like this:

i. Do life with someone in the same stage as us so you have a partner to walk through similar things with.

ii. Have someone a little further down the road than us to mentor us

iii. And that we have someone that we too are mentoring.

iv. When we follow this dynamic, everyone benefits because we all sharpen each other. It helps keep the more seasoned believer fresh and active because it is easy, if not active, which we covered last week – knowledge needs to be applied in action, we can become stagnant or too comfortable in our faith. But our faith is always something that should be growing.

v. When we have these relationships in life, we are all helping one another spur each other on for growth, and that is a wonderful thing!

d. This text in 1 Peter 2 talks about what happens at the beginning life stage as a Christ follower. (next page)

VII. Rid Yourselves (v1)

a. Verse 1 points out that we must rid ourselves of all of this ugly stuff (malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander, etc…)

i. That word, rid, means to take off. This is pointing out that a transformation needs to take place in our lives and, when we’ve given our lives to Christ, and transformation has taken place: a changed life, when we give our lives to Christ by believing in Him with faith as our Lord and Savior who forgives us of our sins and paves the way to eternal life for all who believe in Him.

ii. It is important to note here: this transformation, this change, this ridding of sin, is only something we can do because Jesus made it possible.

iii. So the first step of growth when we accept Jesus as Lord is to rid ourselves of all of that gunk that doesn’t belong. We couldn’t do it before because we were bound to our sin. But now that we know Jesus as Lord, He frees us from that sin and we can take it off and be done with it.

b. While Jesus alone made it possible, it does take action and commitment on our end for it work, right? We must choose to turn away from that past life of sin and start our journey of growing in Christ.

VIII. Pure Milk of the Word (v2a)

a. That rebirth, being born again, is starting over fresh and, just like babies who are newborns need their mother’s milk as God made it so babies has everything they need to grow and thrive in their new, little bodies, so we as new Christians need the “pure milk of the Word”

b. That word pure means unadulterated, without deceit, sincere and I love this: UNMIXED. Nothing added to it but pure and complete, everything we need.

c. See, when sin was mixed into our reality, it wreaked havoc. But once we commit our lives to Jesus and we are freed from that sin, we can be fed by God and His pure Word.

d. So Paul recognizes our need for the purist of nourishment, having no impurity. It is an all inclusive meal that provides everything we need.

e. We are to LONG FOR THIS – that word long for means to desire, long for, to have a strong bent – get this: to CRAVE

i. I think that word is incredibly important here. We need to CRAVE for the pure milk of the word and the sustenance it gives.

ii. Why? Remember again – what we were saved out of.

iii. Our cravings before – the things we were seeking and FILLING ourselves with: malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander – we have to empty ourselves of all of that and, in replacement, fill ourselves with the pure nourishment of God’s Word.

iv. It’s like a spiritual meal replacement plan. We used to crave all of these things that did nothing but bring detriment and damage but we have now been enlightened to the truth of what our former way of living was doing to us and to others and must change our cravings to ensure that which we are taking in is healthy and helpful.

f. I remember growing up, I think I lived off of Coke, Mountain Dew, Kool-Aid and juice from frozen concentrate – you know, the kind in the cans in the freezer section that you add water to?

g. I HATED tap water. I don’t think I drank water until junior high when bottled water became more readily available. Now I’m probably considered a water snob. It has to taste good, it has to be ice cold and it has to be readily available. I drink a lot of water now. I still drink mountain dew but I try to consume as much water as possible, 120-140 ounces a day or else I feel like garbage.

h. Once I started drinking water regularly and craving it – when I didn’t have enough of it, my body would let me know. My craving had to change from things that weren’t all that good to something that was good and beneficial to my body. It makes a huge difference!

i. Why do we need to crave for the pure milk of God’s Word?

j. SO THAT WE CAN:::::::::::::::::::::

k. (NEXT PAGE)

IX. So we can grow (v2b)

a. This word means to grow, to cause increase, to spread, to extend, and refers to growth, fittingly, in both plants or humans.

b. Isn’t it cool how God helps us understand things about Him and ourselves through other things like the growth of plants, for instance? All of the things He has created can be helpful in understanding how God works in and through us.

c. That growth, that increase, is directly linked to “in respect to our salvation”.

d. See, our moment of salvation is only the beginning. It’s a new beginning and a great beginning, but it’s only the beginning. The door that is opened when we receive salvation from Jesus brings so much opportunity for future fruit and growth.

e. We are not meant to be the same as we are when we are first saved. We are not meant to be the same we are today when we reach tomorrow.

f. Just like a baby doesn’t stay a baby, even though they’re so cute and we sometimes wish they could stay that way, they have to grow, it’s an important part of life, right?

g. Same with our spiritual growth. The first steps are vital to the future steps but we can’t live in those first steps over and over, we are meant to mature and grow in our faith and fruit.

h. God has a GREAT FUTURE for each and every one of you. There is great growth awaiting you and I am excited for it and am believing for it.

i. Remember the important part of patience – we don’t always see everything that’s happening underneath the soil, but God is working in us when we seek Him and when we strive to learn in order to promote healthy spiritual growth that leads to the fruitful life as we follow Christ.

X. Types of Growth in the Church

a. Fruit from the Word

i. There are a couple of other passages I want to share regarding our growth.

ii. The first is directly related to what we’ve talked about, we won’t go too deeply into as we’ve studied it here recently, but the parable of the Sower found in Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-27

iii. In this parable, Jesus teaches about a sower who went out to sow seed. The seed falls in many different types of terrain: beside the road, rocky places without much soil, among the thorns, and on good soil.

1. The seed on the side of road: birds ate.

a. Correlation: People who hear the word and don’t understand it and the evil one snatches away what was sown in his heart.

2. The seeds on the rocky places without much soil shot up but then died because there wasn’t enough depth of soil.

a. Correlation: Hears it and receives it with joy but has no firm root and when they face affliction, they bolt.

3. The seeds among the thorns were choked out by the thorns

a. Correlation: Hears the word but are ultimately unfruitful because of the worries of the world and deceiving offerings of wealth. They incorrectly believe other things can provide them what only God and His Word can provide.

4. The seeds in the good soil yielded a crop: some a hundred, some sixty and some thirty times as much.

a. These are the ones who hear the word, understand it and bear fruit. Great fruit.

iv. You can see how the Learn portion that we studied last week and the Grow we’re studying today are tightly knit together. When we learn the Word and believe the Word, it will cause us to grow.

b. Fellowship/Relationship

i. Another vital part of growth in the church and in the Christ follower is found in fellowship.

ii. Here’s the deal: God made us to be relational people. People who need relationship with God Himself as well as being in relationships with other people. Relationships are vital and directly contribute to the health of the church and the individual.

iii. I might sound like a broken record, but I’ll preach it every day of my life here on Earth: WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER!

iv. Some of the things we discussed last week: kid’s and youth are a balance of fellowship and discipleship.

1. Kids and youth learn best in those environments. I think adults actually probably do as well.

v. Fellowship is a platform for future discipleship.

vi. Write that down, I’ll say it again: Fellowship is a platform for future discipleship. For future growth.

vii. Really, what we call church is fellowship. That word, koinonia, is really what the church is intended to be/do: participation fellowship.

1. It has been defined as: the act of sharing in the activities or privileges of an intimate association or group, usually used of marriage and churches.

viii. See, there is this coming together.

ix. Have you ever thought of church being that deep of a relationship like marriage?

x. That language isn’t foreign to the Bible. We, Jesus’ church, the body of Christ, are referred to as the bride of Christ because Jesus is coming back for us to bring us home. There is great intimacy in being part of the body of Christ.

xi. That fellowship, that koinonia, that needs to be intimate amongst all of those in the fellowship. That requires a very tightly knit community.

xii. You ever meet families that are so tightly knit? They do everything together. They all dress the same, talk the same, enjoy the same things. Some take it beyond the level of what we might consider normal haha but we as the family of God are to be in close relationship with one another.

xiii. What that looks like is that participation in fellowship. That participation is something required for all of us. See, we all have things to offer and we all have things to receive.

c. Recall Mark 2. That picture in our hallway out there. The story of the paralytic and his friends. This has healthy fellowship written all over it.

d. Here is Jesus in a house so full of people that it is standing room only, people are probably peeking in the through anywhere they can, getting as close as possible so they can see Jesus and hear Him teach.

e. Good thing there weren’t fire marshals, right? As a result of the crowd, there was no way to get into the house Jesus was at.

f. Here is this paralytic, who is desperate for a touch of healing from God and whose friends are joining with him in that desperation. They want to see him healed and they have great faith believing that if they can just get him to Jesus that he will be healed.

g. So the friends cut a hole in the ceiling and lower him down. Then Jesus heals the man, an incredible miracle.

h. That happened because of the real fellowship these people were actively taking part in. It is incredible!!

i. Growing in fellowship and growing from fellowship – this is the goal.

j. Do you see what happens when we participate in fellowship as the church? These friends were looking out for their friend who literally couldn’t walk and get himself to Jesus.

k. What are some things God is asking you to do for your friends? What are some things your friends can do for you? What are some things your friends have done for you?

l. (See, great growth…. Next page)

XI. Next Steps

a. Great growth takes place in the midst of healthy fellowship and when we learn from God’s Word.

b. This is why the “grow” portion of our purpose statement covers both the growth from learning God’s Word but also the growth from relationship. We grow, develop and mature in our faith in Christ and in our walk of faith when we are actively participating in fellowship as the body of Christ.

c. See, church is about so much more than just being present/in attendance on a Sunday morning. We are to be actively involved. Not just while we’re here on Sunday but on Monday through Saturday as well!

d. Let me add some perspective here: What if those 4 friends said “ah, there’s nothing we can really do about our friend’s physical issues, so let’s not try to worry about it.”

e. I am not promising that we can fix every person’s problem, but what can we do? We CAN ALL bring people to Jesus and they ALL can receive the greatest healing there is: forgiveness of our sins and that new life, new birth, amen?

f. When we seek Jesus, we find Him. Let’s seek Him personally and let’s help lead others to a place where they can find Him as well.

g. Let’s pray and sing.

XII. Prayer