This week I was listening to the Christian music station and a familiar song came on the radio by a band named Switchfoot called “This is your life,” and the lyrics of the song say, “This is your life, are you who you want to be? This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be when the world was younger and you had everything to lose.” When you look in the mirror are you the person you thought you would become? Are you who you want to be? Or maybe a better question is, are you the person God wants you to be?
The first question is an introspective question, are you happy with your life? To quote Dr. Phil, “how’s that working for you?” At some point in our life we need to realize that perhaps the way we’ve always done things in the past hasn’t gotten the results we thought it would. In fact the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, but expecting different results. I still have that anger problem, my kids aren’t as well behaved as I thought they would be, my marriage isn’t as I imagined on my wedding day, I’m not satisfied with my job, it is unfulfilling, we can’t seem to control our spending.
On the other hand many of us are pretty happy or at least comfortable with where we are, things are going okay. But are we the person God wants us to be? This is a tough question because the Bible tells us God loves us just the way we are. There is nothing you could do more or less of to receive God’s love. God loves us for who we are right now, no matter how successful or unsuccessful we are. In fact, there are some here this morning who need to hear this today, because you are always trying to work hard to gain God’s approval, but God already loves you. You might have the voice of a father or mother or coach in your head saying you’re still not good enough, you can do better, and you just couldn’t seem to win their approval. God isn’t that way he already approves of you.
Yet at the same time, God knows what we can become with his help. God says it this way in the Bible, “be holy, as I am holy.” God knows we can become so much more, and so God loves us enough to help us become all that we could be if we are willing. I love to watching college football and this year I’ve been able to check out MSU, U of M, Notre Dame, they are all have rookie quarterbacks right now. And they’re a little green behind the ears if you know what I mean. They have a lot of raw talent that hasn’t been formed yet. They haven’t even come close to reaching their potential, yet the coach’s job is not to accept them for who they are, their job is to help them to be the best quarterback they can be. As the quarterback grows in his role, he becomes more fulfilled and grows in confidence in his abilities. God wants us to become the best we can be, he loves us for who we are but he wants is to experience fullness of life, abundant life.
In our memory verse this morning, I believe the Apostle Paul, was trying to help us see how we can have that kind of life God intends for us, to be the person God planned for us to be. It begins with God, not with us. The reason we are not where we ought to be is because we have tried doing it on our own without relying on God’s help. We try to be a self made person. Kind of the, ‘God helps them who help themselves’ mentality. Sorry folks that is not in the Bible. God helps those who trust, rely, and lean on him. We must put aside our pride and realize we need help from outside ourselves. We need God’s help. God provides that help for us through Jesus. When we admit we are sinner and inadequate to save ourselves, and believer Jesus, he saves us from ourselves and fills us with his Spirit so we can become all that God created us to be. If we want to receive God’s help, we must begin with receiving Jesus first.
Paul advices his readers, “NLT Colossians 2:6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him. Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught.” The change begins with God, God wants to do a work in us but it is only possible with him.
If we want to participate in that life we need to trust in Jesus, we also need to obey him. Jesus said, “If you love me obey my commandments.” Do we follow Jesus’ commandments? You cannot experience abundant life without obeying God. Jesus summarized the commandments to be “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
But we also must continue to let our roots go down into Christ to draw up nourishment from him so we will grow in faith. In order to experience this life we also need to grow spiritually, we must be firmly rooted in Christ and our roots must go deep in Christ.
People use the phrase spiritual growth all the time, it’s a popular phrase, but we don’t always understand what it means. What is spiritual growth, is it knowing the Bible more? Is it praying more? Is it attending church more? No, those are not spiritual growth although they can facilitate growth as we will see later. Growing spiritually means we receive God’s grace to know him better (in other words it’s relational) and mature to be more like him. Being more like him means we reflect God’s/Jesus’ character and actions, doing what he would do. When we look in the mirror we should see Jesus reflected. The reason we face disappointment with our life is because we have failed to recognize that we are inadequate to bring true happiness on our own. Instead it is a gift from God. As we will see over the next several weeks spiritual growth will incorporate things like reading Scripture, praying, worshipping God, but those are not the end goal, these open us to receiving God’s grace so he can change us and our situation.
Just because someone is a Christian, has faith in Jesus Christ, doesn’t mean they are growing spiritually. I told you last week about my parent’s neighbor, a mean, ornery old man. What I didn’t tell you is that he claims to be a Christian, and he goes to church every week. Wait a minute now! The character of Christ in the Bible is revealed as loving, kind, patient, firm telling the truth with certainty and conviction but always with gentleness and humility. Former pastor and now leadership guru John Maxwell tells the story about a man in the second church he pastored. Every week this man would come to service with a tape recorder and record the sermon. He would then transcribe the entire message after church and on Monday would send it along with a letter to Pastor John telling him everything he did wrong, and how terrible his message was and hoped that next week he would do a better job. This went on every week for five and half years until God convicted him of the pain he was causing.
Just because we are a Christian means doesn’t mean we are growing spiritually, maturing to be like Jesus, or that we are deeply rooted in Christ. A quick look in the mirror will give us that answer, are we acting the way Jesus would act, doing the things Jesus would do? Are we more loving, kind, less anger than we were a year ago…five years ago…ten years ago…twenty years ago? If we are not more loving, more caring, more kind, have more joy, than we might be aging but we are not maturing spiritually.
Inevitably when we talk about being holy, I hear responses like, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace,” or “we all make mistakes.” That may be true but it’s a copout. The Scripture affirm over and over again that as believers in Christ haven’t just been saved by grace, we have been transformed by grace. We are new creations in Christ. The old is gone, the new has come. Our lives should be different once we have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. God has begun a transformation in us when we believed in Christ and he wants to continue that work to its completion. It is not always an instantaneous change, but rather it is a lifelong process. A process the Bible calls sanctification.
In order for our character and actions to reflect God or Jesus, Paul tells us we must send our roots deeply in Christ. So if you’ve been wondering why there is a tree on platform this morning, now you know. It is our reminder that it is our choice on whether we will push our roots deeper in Christ if we are going to grow up spiritually.
Being Planted
When we become a Christian and give our hearts to Jesus Christ, when we believe the good news that Jesus died and rose from the dead for us. We are planted as new saplings in his orchard. We’re small and spindly with shallow roots in the ground. We’re saved, we’re going to heaven, but we are infants. Belief is just a beginning point. Being a Christian does not necessarily make you change your ways, or become a different person. Belief doesn’t automatically make you more loving, kind, and gentle, and have more joy because you are just a sapling drawing a small amount of nourishment from God because of our shallow roots, you are still a babe in Christ, you’re still using a sippy cup. When we are a sapling we sometimes continue to act like the world because we have not matured.
Growth
A tree is designed intended to grow just as we are physically when we are born. But in order for a tree to grow above ground, it must grow below ground. Its roots need to shoot down. Dale tells me a mature (deciduous) tree will have a root system equal to what we see above ground. If we don’t have deep roots like that sapling we are in a precarious position. A sapling with shallow roots is more susceptible to extreme weather (drought or torrential rains and storms), disease, and pests. The same is true for us, when we are saplings in Christ we are more susceptible when bad things happen. When the storms come into our life; death of a loved one, health problems, financial difficulties, family issues, or the disease of temptations come our way, and we are not deeply rooted in Christ what’s going to happen? It’s going to be a difficult road because we will doubt God.
In order for us to experience all the fulfillment of what God wants to give us we need to keep growing spiritually. In order for our outward/visible lives to be changed the inward part has to be changed first. Imagine the outward part of our lives is like the visible part of a tree, the trunk, the branches, the leaves, and the inward invisible spiritual part of our lives is like the roots of the tree. God is saying to us, I want to grow to be full, I want you to reflect my character, but in order for that to happen the inward part of our life must grow first, our heart, our soul.
Spiritual growth is not a quick fix, take a class, go on a retreat, or watch Dr. Phil one hour on TV kind of solution to our dilemma. A redwood did not reach its towering height overnight, in a day, a year, or 10 years. Our spiritual growth is an intentional lifelong process, it’s not a one time fix it and forget it kind of thing. It is a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly process of allowing God to work in our life. In order to grow deeper we must draw nourishment from him regularly for our everyday life.
How do we grow our roots in Christ? God has given us several practices which were modeled by Jesus and which we will cover over the next several weeks:
Inward practices: 1) The Practice of Prayer, 2) The Practice of Reflecting on Scripture, 3) Receiving Guidance from the Holy Spirit (Meditation); Outward practices: 4) The Practice of Slowing, 5) The Practice of Simplicity, 6) The Practice of Servanthood Corporate practices (things we do with others): 7) The Practice of Confession, 8) The Practice of Worship, and 9) the Practice of Celebration. We’re not going over these because I want to give you a guilt trip on all the things you aren’t doing, or doing enough of. It is because we all need to grow in Christ. We all need to send our roots down deeper so we can experience fullness of life and when the trials, tribulations, and temptations of life come we are so close to the Lord that they don’t even phase us because we are so close to the Lord.
Conclusion:
Let me close by repeating my questions. Are you who you want to be? Are you who God created you to be? How is your root system? How deep do your roots go in Christ? What are you going to do to grow your roots in Christ? I encourage you to join us over the next several weeks as we learn together how we can send our roots deeper in Christ.
