Grow
Series: 2008 Mission and Vision Series
12/07/08 | Tim Schaaf
- Launch Jukebox
- Download
- Personality
- T-Shirts
- Career
- Relationships
- Body Image / Health
- Possessions
- Hobbies
- Wisdom
- Ecclesiastes 1:13-14 - And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
- Pleasure
- Ecclesiastes 2:23 - For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.
- Church Attendance
- Read Bible
- Being in a Small Group
- Serving Somewhere
- Giving Money
- You might just be a busy person doing stuff
- The fruit of the Spirit has nothing to do with what you do
- Teaching isn’t a fruit
- Singing isn’t a fruit
- Going to Small Group isn’t a fruit
- In America preaching
- Asked, did Jesus die for your sins?
- Home, depressed & dejected
- “Our God Reigns”
- Euangelion = Good News = Gospel
- Spirit mentioned SEVEN TIMES (7x) in this passage
- You need His Help, His Power to grow as a good person
- Without Pity
- Painful
- Slow
- Inevitable
- Stop fighting the war
- Accept the Lord who already won
Grow
Series: Change, Grow, Serve 2010
Story from Dwight Edwards Releasing the Rivers Within p.106-17
Years ago, an artist in Paris would go from park to park on the weekends to sekpt potraits for anyone willing to pay his price. One Sunday when he couldn't find any interested custoers, he happened to notice a drunk slumped on a park bench. The artists decided to draw a portrait of this disheveled man, except that it would show what he envisioned the man would look like if his life were reformed. He drew the man as clean shave, well groomed, and in a fine suit.When he was finished, he asked the man to come over and look at the drawing. The man staggered over, looked at it, then complimented the artist on his work. Looking around the park, he asked, "But where is this man?"
"The man is you," the artist answered.
The drunk was initially offended, believing that the artist was mocking him. But the artist assured him this wasn't the case and asked him to look more closely at the picture. Sure enough, as the man gazed upon the portrait he saw himself unmistakably there, though in a condition far different from his present one.
Tears began streaming down his face. No one had ever seen him in this light before, and hope stirred in his heart that perhaps he could actually become the man in the portrait.
He turned to the artist and said, "If that's the man you see, then that's the man I'll be." And according to tradition, that's what happened. He reformed his way of living and before long became the very man whom the artist had drawn.
1. How Do You Paint Your Own Portrait?
A. What brush strokes, colors and textures make up your life?
B. The Author of Ecclesiastes was a great painter, but was never happy with the way his portrait turned out.
· Success
o Ecclesiastes 2:9-11 - So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
· Righteous Living
o Ecclesiastes 2:14-15 - The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. Then I said in my heart, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?" And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.
· Work
C. We Are Unable to Successfully Paint Ourselves
2. Have You Seen The Portrait of You Painted by God?
Ephesians 2:10 - For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
1 Corinthians 6:11 - And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
1 Corinthians 9:19 - For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.
2 Corinthians 3:2 - You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.
Colossians 3:3-4 - For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Growth =
Deliberately Forming a Life
That Will Match This Portrait
3. Problem - We Loose Our True Identity
Story- Jewish Concentration Camps (From Eric Geiger)
The book Witnesses discloses candid interviews with Jewish prisoners who survived Nazi concentration camps. Their stories are horrific. The goal of the Nazis was to destroy the identity of each person, to demoralize the prisoner.
The Nazis attacked the identity of each prisoner so that the prisoners would have no motivation to incite a rebellion. The prisoner would resign to live the remainder of his existence in misery. One prisoner named Walter recounts his story:
Right after arriving to the concentration camp, we were herded into a room where all our civil clothes were taken off. We were shaved, all of our hair was removed, our bodily hair was removed. It went so fast, everything, and all the work was done by other prisoners. See, the guards would stand by, but all the work was done by fellow prisoners. We took a shower and then I did get my number tattooed, which is 117022. This was supposed to be my name. I had no name anymore. That was it.
What Keeps Us From Growth?
#1 Busyness and Distraction
Pascal's Pensees
...I have often felt that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his own room.
...They only turn to look around for people to talk with or to compete against in gambling because they have no enjoyment in staying at home.
...It is that the natural misfortune of our mortality and weakness is so miserable that nothing can console us when we really think about it.
...The only good thing for man, therefore, is to be diverted so that he will stop thinking about his circumstances. Business will keep his mind off of it. Perhaps there will be some novel and enjoyable pursuit which keeps him busy, such as gambling, hunting, or some show. In short, it will be what is call distraction.
... In busyness we have a narcotic to keep us from brooding and to take our mine off these things. That is why we prefer the hunt to the kill.
...Telling a man to rest is the same thing as telling him to be happy. It means advising him to enjoy a state in which he is completely happy and which he can think over at leisure without meeting something that will distress him. Those who give this kind of advice do not understand human nature. Therefore, those who are naturally conscious of what they avoid, avoid rest like the plague.
Busyness in life
Busyness in Christian Life
o serving the church
o Studies
Reveal - Busyness does not equal Growth
Chart 1 - what they expected to find
- More activity = more growth
Chart 2 - what they found
- Busyness has no correlation to growth #2 The "Season of Life" Excuse
Brit Hume Retiring
Question: WHAT OTHER THINGS WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO IN RETIREMENT?
Hume: I certainly want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died (by suicide in 1998), I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it.
Piper on Retirement
#3 Sin
Sin Type 1 = Continued, Unrepentant
Sin Type 2 = Old Sins that Discourage Us
Believers must repent for being discouraged by their sins
"Their being discouraged by their sins will cost them many a prayer, many a tear, and many a groan; and that because their discouragements under sin flow from ignorance and unbelief. It springs from their ignorance of the richness, freeness, fullness, and everlastingness of God's love; and from their ignorance of the power, glory, sufficiency, and efficacy of the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ; and from their ignorance of the worth, glory, fullness, largeness, and completeness of the righteousness of Jesus Christ; and from their ignorance of that real, close, spiritual, glorious, and inseparable union that is between Christ and their precious souls.
Ah! Did precious souls know and believe the truth of these things as they should, they would not sit down dejected and overwhelmed under the sense and operation of sin. God never gave a believer a new heart that it should always lie a-bleeding, and that it should always be rent and torn in pieces with discouragements."
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
#4 Isolation
4. How To Grow = Repaint Yourself with the Gospel Every Day
How Do You Know You Are Growing?
Article by John Ortberg – People often measure spiritual growth by activity.
Reveal Graph #1 (Hypothesis) – There should be a direct connection between Activity and Attitude
Instead this research found that you can get activity without changing attitude.
This isn’t the point.
The goal of the church isn’t to get people to sing, give, read and serve.
The goal is to help people who would naturally wander through life … and help them learn to follow Jesus.
So how do we actually know if we are growing???
What does it take to Grow???
1. We Need to Grow So That We Can “Do What We Want”
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. ” (Galatians 5:16–17)
A. There is a battle going on inside of you … even inside Christians.
FLESH vs. SPIRIT
Flesh = Who You Are By Nature.
- Sinful
- Total Depravity isn’t that you are as bad as you could be, but that you’re not as good as you should be.
- Works of the Flesh (v.19-21) mess up our sexuality, religion,& social lives.
Spirit = Who You Are In Jesus.
- Christ-Like
- Changing the way you relate to God, people around you … even yourself.
- Fruit of the Spirit (v.22-23) are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness & self-control
Flesh & Spirit are Opposed to Each Other “To Keep You From Doing The Things You Want To Do.” (v.17)
“The Things You Want To Do”
- Free Will is choked out
Before Jesus, the Flesh is Freely choosing Sin
Only with the Spirit’s Help can we Freely Choose Jesus
Growth Is Necessary To Free Our Wills So That We Can Choose Jesus
Choosing Jesus Freely changes our lives.
(on screen)
ü In Marriage, freely choosing Jesus means…
ü As a Parent, freely choosing Jesus means…
ü At Work, freely choosing Jesus means…
ü When You Can’t Sleep at Night, freely choosing Jesus means…
2. Growth is Organic & Internal, Not Mechanical & External
Paul is deliberately using gardening metaphors.
The church is Jesus’ P-Patch.
This is how the Bible often talks about growth & life-change
“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; ” (1 Peter 1:22–23, ESV)
How Does a Garden Grow?
Slowly
But it does grow … the seeds slowly take life
Life-Change happens the same way a flower, tree or garden grows.
- You don’t see it
- But over time, its powerful and obvious
Mechanical, External Growth = Stacking Bricks and Layering Logs
If you take a pile of apples, can you call that an “apple tree”?
No … it’s just a pile of apples.
In the same way, you can’t stack Churchy-Stuff on top of your life and call yourself a growing Christian.
- You can have a growing spiritual resume
- You can have a growing pile of activity
- You can have a growing list of prayer meetings & Bible Studies
- But that doesn’t mean that you are a Growing Christian
John Wesley (from his journal) -
In 1730 I began visiting the prisons, assisting the poor and sick in town, and doing what other good I could, by my presence or my little fortune, to the bodies and souls of all men. To this end I abridged myself of all superfluities, and many that are called necessaries of life. …The next spring I began observing the Wednesday and Friday fasts, commonly observed in the ancient church, tasting no food till three in the afternoon. And now I knew not how to go any farther. I diligently strove against all sin. I omitted no sort of self-denial which I thought lawful; I carefully used, both in public and in private, all the means of grace at all opportunities. I omitted no occasion of doing good: I for that reason suffered evil. And all this I knew to be nothing, unless as it was directed toward inward holiness. Accordingly this, the image of God, was what I aimed at in all, by doing his will, not my own. Yet when, after continuing some years in this course, I apprehended myself to be near death, I could not find that all this gave me any comfort, or any assurance of acceptance with God.
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. (from http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=5951&loc_id=639,624)
Organic, Internal Growth = Slow, Internal, Spirit-Filled Growth
Fruit is a by-product
We aren’t the tree, the vine, the plant or the root.
We are just fruit.
3. How to Make Growth Possible
#1 Be Changed By the Gospel
You have to be a Christian.
The Gospel is that Jesus did it all for you.
Gospel = News from a herald
Two things a herald can say:
- We are loosing. To Arms!
- We won! Celebrate
Are you still fighting the war?
Or can you admit that Jesus is Lord.
He is Your God … and Your God Reigns.
#2 Add the Spirit (Walk By the Spirit)
The Same Gospel that Justifies You Is the Same Gospel that Sanctifies You
Am I a good person?
Before Jesus … NO … you need the Gospel.
? Now that I’m a Christian, can I be a good person?
NO!
You still need the Gospel.
- That’s why we need the Holy Spirit
“For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. ” (Colossians 1:29, ESV)
#3 Clear the Garden of Rocks & Debris
Hate Your Sin
Hate Sin in Our Community of Faith
Works of the Flesh
Sex – Immorality, Impurity, Sensuality
Religion – Idolatry, Sorcery
Social Life – Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissentions, divisions, envy
Consumption – Drunkenness, orgies
v.24 – CRUCIFY the Flesh
- Put to death
This is not done TO us … it is done BY us
#4 Add Nourishment To Enhance Life
Spiritual Disciplines
Don Whitney illustration “Getting hit by a semi”
“Don’t expect Jesus to take a Dirt Road to You.”
Conclusion
What do you need to Grow???
1) Become a Christian
2) Ask for the Filling of the Spirit
3) Hate Your Sin
4) Practice Spiritual Disciplines