OPEN: We continuing this morning in a series of messages called GROW. Our Christian life should be one that perpetuates growth in Christ. After we enter into a relationship with our God -- He desires for us to grow and mature in our faith -- yet that process can be so difficult and almost illusive for so many people.
Growth is a natural response to what God is doing in our lives.
Seed that falls on good soil produces growth. If God the Father is watching over you and sovereignly guiding you to accomplish His Will and God the Son has died, rose again and is know sitting at the right hand of the Father interceding for you, God the Holy Spirit has taken residence inside of you counseling, comforting, instructing and reminding and empowering you, there will be growth. In fact when you think about it -- if those things are true -- and Scripture declares that they are -- then how could there not be growth? This is one of those basic fundamental lessons that is taught to us in so many places in the Scripture. "But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." (Matt. 13:23)
Growth or the lack of growth has always been a major concern for much of the New Testament. We don't start out as mature adults! We start out as babies; as infants. We eventually crawl, and then walk, and over years of time and nurturing, we grow-up, and one day find ourselves maturing in an adult world. As infants we are first feed milk or formula, and eventually we graduate to strained food and after developing some teeth we eventually sink them into some beef. Now it would seem absurd to have a grown adult who enjoys eating baby food, right? I know there will be a mom out there who says, "Hey, I like baby food." -- but my guess is that it's not actually on the menu for dinner tonight. Imagine me bringing up an adult on the platform and putting a bib on them and spoon feeding strained peas and pureed prunes and strained spinach. (Open up - here's come the little choo choo train) That would be ridiculous right? It would be sad situation if the adult enjoyed it. When there is a lack of maturity and growth, it's an indication that something is dramatically wrong. Last week we looked at three areas the saints in the Colossae were growing: Faith, Love and hope. Today we are going to look at two addition areas of growth: Growing in what is being produced in our lives. Growing in our knowledge of the Lord.
Sometimes in spite of everything that God has done for us -- people chose not to grow.
We've talked it about it before -- but an interesting thing about some Christians is growth is not something that is always embraced. Interestingly, there are groups of people in the Bible who are chastised for not growing -- for not maturing. The Corinthians were one group. (1 Cor. 3:1-3) Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. "Indeed, you are still not ready." You are still worldly.
The writer of Hebrews had the same issue:
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Heb. 5:11-14)
You have the strange ability to either choose to grow or not. Even though the principle of growth is built into your faith in Jesus Christ - even though it is God's will that you continue to grow -- you can still choose to circumvent His plan and just stay at a low level of maturity. Sometimes in spite of everything that God has done for us -- people chose not to grow.
Ill. - Can you imagine a redwood tree saying, "I'd just rather remain a little bush"? That would seem insane, right? I want to put up on the screen some pictures of redwood trees. They are truly magnificent. My oldest daughter and her husband were married at the foot of redwood that is over 2000 years old. (It is possible that tree was on earth during the time of Christ!) Some of these trees can stretch 250-300 feet tall. Some of them you can drive a car through. Amazing, isn't it? The tallest one on record is 379 feet tall. That's as tall as a forty story building.
Now imagine if a redwood tree started out as a sapling and started to grow and for the first several years it stretched out its branches and deepened its root system -- it grew beyond the height of a little bush. Let's say it reached it the height of 15 feet -- it has all the right conditions to continue to grow but instead of continuing it just decides, "This is far enough -- I don't think I will continue to grow to anything beyond this 15 foot height." Year after year after year it just sits there and chooses not to grow, even though God has provided a place where it can be nourished and fed and it can grow and stretch up and touch the sky. You would look at that and say, "God designed you grow. He's designed you to reach higher than all the other trees in the world -- why in the world would you choose not to reach to the heights?" He's equipped you to be a spiritual redwood. Can't you just see God looking down at that little tree and saying, "Boy have I got plans for you." Stunted growth is just as great of a loss as no growth. So it is with Christians. Oftentimes what happens in some people's lives is they attend a couple of classes -- they get a little bit of knowledge and they say -- that's enough. If you only knew what God actually has planned for you. So I've been chewing on this concept a little this week -- and this is one of those of thoughts that kind of stuck in mind?
How Do You Motivate People Who Are Not Motivated?
This has been a question I've been dwelling on all week. How do you motivate people who have resisted growth to start growing? How do you help people recapture a vision of what God intends them to be and get back to the business of stretching out to new heights? How do you motivate unmotivated people? There are basically two kinds of motivation:
Two Forms of Motivation:
- Internal. An internal sense of dissatisfaction. When a person compares his present condition with other available options, there is a discomfort or a sense of frustration. It creates a kind of emotional anxiety. The higher the level of discomfort - the greater the desire to effect change.
- External -- External motivation comes from someone else exercising some of kind of external pressure upon you. That pressure can come in a multitude of forms: Coercion, emotional pressure, make you feel guilty if you don't do what they want, the threat of punishment if you don't respond to their expectations. Those are all negative motivations. Then there can also be positive kinds of external motivators: I will reward you if you follow my instructions. There will be pay off and benefit if I act accordingly.
So let me ask you: Has God provided us with the motivation we actually need to grow?
Internal: How has he given us internal motivation? The Holy Spirit. "But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13)
External: We have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, (1 Peter 1:4)
God has given us everything we could ever need -- he sings over us when we sleep. He forgives us when we fail. He loves us when we don't love him. He empowers us when we are weak. He counsels us when we are confused. He searches for us when we are lost. He redirects us when we go astray. He remins faithful when we are faithless. He looks over us and just keeps saying, Grow Baby! Grow! You can do it! And that should be enough to motivate us every single day we are here on earth.
Why do people pursue the things that they do? What keeps fishermen fishing? Why do hunters continue to hunt? What motivates golfers to continue to play golf? What keeps them going is the thrill they get. When a fisherman "lands the big one," they get a thrill that motivates them to keep sacrificing the time and energy they spend while fishing. When a hunter kills that big trophy buck, or simply enjoys a quiet morning in a deer stand, they receive a thrill that motivates them to keep on in their pursuit of hunting making whatever sacrifice necessary to be in their stand before dawn. If a golfer does not get an occasional thrill from a long drive placed in the middle of the fairway or a tough putt made, it is doubtful that person will continue to play golf very long.
We do what we do because of the thrill we get from that pursuit. As Christians, it should thrill us as much to please the Lord as it would for a hunter to kill that 12-point buck or a golfer to get a hole-in-one. The only way this can be true is if our ultimate desire is to do what Paul says in v10, to please the Lord in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Do not let anyone fool you. Living the Christian life is not merely an academic exercise. Being a Christian is more than achieving a certain set of moral habits. It also involves bearing spiritual fruit.
What Are You Producing For The Kingdom of Christ?
How is the Kingdom of Christ growing through you? "All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth." (Col. 1:6) And look down at verse 10: "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God," Twice in these few verses Paul makes reference to the fact that the Gospel is producing something. The Gospel produces fruit. If the gospel is really in you -- you can't contain it. It spreads to other places.
Ill.- When we lived in Massachusetts, the parsonage we lived in was this big four corner, two story, brick colonial. On one side of the house there was this vine that had covered nearly the entire house. This vine had to been growing for years. One side of the house was just covered with it. After we moved in, it was clear it had to come down. It had these little tiny tentacles that came off it and attached to the house and while it looked kind of interesting to have the house covered with it, it was slowly eating away at the mortar between the bricks. So I made it a Saturday afternoon project. Man was that thing difficult to get detached from the house. Those little tentacles were amazing strong and it took everything I could muster to pull it away from the house. Not only was it difficult to pull away, but it had actually worked it's way through a ceiling vent and had begun sprung out through the vent in the ceiling of the bathroom. I mean it looked like this vine was doing its best to consume our home. Now what amazed me is that this vent leading into the bathroom had to be 7-8 feet from where the vine entered on the outside and to where it came out in the bathroom. That was all concealed in one of those flexible vent pipes. Totally dark! How in the world does something that requires photosynthesis to survive grow 8 feet through a totally dark pipe? Living things grow. If it is alive -- it is going to produce something. It can't be contained.
Look what Paul says here "this gospel is bearing fruit and growing," It's spreading. It is producing something. It's uncontainable. This is really the heart of the gospel, it is a living thing. The Word of God is alive and powerful, it is productive. Divine energy produces growth. The gospel is like an inward energy that spreads like the mustard seed becoming a tree. It's alive and when it falls into the divinely prepared heart it bears fruit. It not only works within, not only bearing fruit within but it spreads, and those are the two ideas. Three is inward growth - then there is outward growth. The first idea of bearing fruit has an inward concept, the second is a spreading thing. The gospel gets into somebody and grows and he begins to mature and then it spreads and the church begins to grow. So, you have internal spiritual transformation and you have external growth in the church.
Do you know why I'm here this morning? Because a tiny little Baptist church down in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA was so excited about Jesus that it kept on teaching and kept on preaching and the members kept on coming to Sunday School and worship and among other things. The planted the seed of the Gospel and it took root in my heart and some cultivated and others watered and I grew in my understanding of the Lord. And that little group of faithful saints produced growth for the kingdom - one of the things they produced was a man and wife who ended up being called to lead a church in North East Connecticut. Jesus got into their hearts and they were so excited about it that it spilled out of them and took root and began to grow in mine.
- External fruit can only grow as a result of internal nourishment.
Now that's self-evident, isn't it? You will never see external fruit growing on a tree if there is no supply of internal nourishment. A tree that isn't rooted, can't produce fruit. In John 15 Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) When there is an ongoing connection there is going to be growth -- there is going to be reproduction -- there is going to be spiritual fruit produced. When there is no ongoing source of nourishment -- what happens? The branch dries up and nothing is produced. What are you producing for the kingdom of Christ? If the answer is, "Well not an awful lot." recognize it's a nourishment issue. It's an "abiding" issue. Draw closer to Jesus and you'll find more fruit being produced in your life.
Are You Growing In the Knowledge of God's Will for Your Life?
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, (Col. 1:9)
- Notice the word "fill" Whatever fills you is what controls you. You know, you can know something and not be filled with the knowledge of it. There are plenty of people in the world who know the facts of the Scripture, who know the facts about God, but it doesn't dominate their life. The word pleroo, in the Greek, is simply the Greek word for filling something up to completeness. It is a word that signifies the absence of anything else. If I say here's a glass of water and I fill it up that means I fill it up and there couldn't be anything else added to the glass of water without spilling it. It is totally dominated by that water. That's the word filled. It is a word that signifies something totally complete. And what Paul is praying here is that the imperfections and the inadequacies of our knowledge of God's will- will be more and more eliminated until we are filled with His will. Notice also when Paul prays, what does he ask God to fill them up with? "The knowledge of his will" In other words they would know what God wanted them to do and how God wanted them to act as they dealt with the issues of their life. The issue is never just knowing -- the issue is the knowledge working it's way into behavior. -- that's the fruit. When behavior is mediated by the knowledge of God's will -- that's fruit.
The Knowledge of God Always Precedes Godly Behavior.
If you a person or a group of people who are acting in an ungodly way -- the reason is they might not know any better. You can never operate on what you don't know. Ignorance is not bless -- it's costly. Ignorance hurts you -- and it hurts those around you. We can't function on the basis of what we don't know -- we can only function on the basis of what we do know.
"My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children." (Hosea 4:6) Folks not listen to me -- there is no such thing as a follower of God who is not also called to be a student. The word "disciple" means student. A disciple who is not studying and growing in their knowledge of the Lord is what? Something else beside of a disciple. How can you continue to grow -- if you make the decision not to increase in your knowledge of the Lord and His Word? How can you be a city on a hill -- if your knowledge of God isn't continuing to increase? You can't.
There is never a time in your life as a Christian when you can sit back and say, "I've learned all I need to learn. I can stop studying now. I no longer need to be a student." Why is that? Number one the target keeps moving. Every single day we are faced with a new set of problems that we never even dreamed about yesterday. Think of the multitude of new complexities that come our way -- that we have to deal with each day. The different kinds of problems people struggle with, the temptations of the world that shift from one focus and one approach to the next, the changing seasons of life that we all go through -- the various attacks of the enemy. I can't comprehend someone sitting back and saying, "I've learned all I need to learn." Number two I'm setting an example for those who follow -- if by the example of my life I say, Bible study is not important -- don't worry about being a student -- don't worry about Sunday School class or a small group where there is deep study of God's Word -- what do you think is going to be practiced by the people following me? Every time I chose to not to participate in those kinds of things I am preaching to them, "I know what the Bible says about growing in the knowledge of the Lord -- buy look at my life -- I don't need it, so neither do you." And then we'll sit back and complain and commiserate over how poorly the young people of today are acting. The Bible says "Follow me as I follow Christ." You're preaching to others by your commitment or lack of commitment to be a true and faithful disciple. Ill. every once in awhile you will hear some celebrity who gets caught in some kind of scandal and someone will ask them why they didn't have other people in mind -- other people who looked up to them. And occasionally you'll hear them say, "Hey I never signed up to be a role model for anybody." Yes you did. The moment you put yourself in the spotlight -- it is an inseparable reality. If you want fame -- along with it comes influence. The same is true with you as a believer in Christ. You want to carry the name of Jesus -- along with it comes the inseparable reality that you become a person who is influences others. God planned it that way right? If you are a leader in the church you are a person who is influencing others. Every leader certainly accepts the responsibility to model for others God's plan, right? If you are a servant in the church, you are a person who is influencing others. You can't get away from it. It's God's plan.
And then there is a third reason why you can't stop being a student -- God commands it. The very commission of the church is make disciples -- make students who grow. We've looked at several verses during the past several weeks when God commands you to continue to grow.
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:2-3) But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen. (2 Peter 3:18) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! (Hebrews 5:12)
Let's look at this verse again: For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, (Col. 1:9)
The BIG question is, "Do you really want to know what God wants from your life?" - If God could speak to you right now and say, This is what I want you do this afternoon." Do you really want to know that? Because if God says, "This afternoon I want you to get prepared to go to another nation and spread the Gospel there." Would you want to know that? Or what if God said, "This afternoon what I really want you do is to go and start serving in your local church." Do you really want to know that? Or what if God said, "What I really want you to do this afternoon is I want you to go that person you're angry with and admit that your anger is sinful and ask them to forgive you," Do you really want to know? Isn't there a side of you that says, "I'd rather not know." Wouldn't you rather plead ignorance at the end of your life and say --"Well I didn't know that so I can't be held responsible for it." I thought it was your will for me to be a lazy do nothing kind of person -- I thought you wanted me to spend all my time in front of the television -- I thought it was your will for me cut myself off from that relationship and isolate myself and rationalize what it was right in my case to hold a grudge." "I thought it was your will that I watch others teach and never teach myself even though I've been learning your word for the past 20 years and have years of experience in the faith." "I didn't know that you wanted to me do something with that." or do you really want to know the will of God? If God had his way in your life this afternoon, what would he have you do? The issue is how much we actually trust God when it comes to His will. That what he has in His plan for me - his design and His desire - is better than what I plan for myself.
I'm convinced that most of us don't really want to know the will of God. I'm convinced that most of us really trust our own ideas more than we actually trust the word of God. Ill.- Imagine your kids sitting at home on the couch playing video games. Now you and your spouse have secretly arranged this marvelous vacation trip to Disneyland but you've decided that you don't want them to know where they are going until they are actually on the way to the airport. You're not going to give them any of details of the trip until they are packed into the car and on the way. So you come up to them and say, "I just want you to put the video games away and come out and get into the car." They say, "Hey I jut want to sit here and play James Bond on the video games." They're rather indifferent to your plans -- because they have an agenda for their day and they have no idea what your agenda is. What they have planned for themselves seems more attractive to them than this unknown thing in which you'd like them involved. Now if they could have a clear picture of what it is that you have planned, there would be little doubt that they'd look at their friends and say, "You're outta here!" They'd shut off James Bond or whatever silly game that's captured their immediate attention and run out and get into the car.
God has great plans for you -- plans that perhaps you've never envisioned for yourself. Will trust himself to seek it? Will you be disciplined enough to learn about it? Will you respond?
Be Careful To Avoid The Irrational Act of Unresponsiveness
There are many people that treat the Church like a merry-go-round. The Church is not a merry-go-round. A lot of churches are like a merry-go-round. You drop a token in the collection box, it's good for a ride. There's music and lots of motion up and down. The ride is carefully timed and seldom varies in length. Lots of good feelings are generated and it is the one ride you can be sure will never be the least bit threatening or challenging. Folks who are fearful of the roller coaster will most times still ride the merry-go-round. It's a safe ride. But the problem with the merry-go-round is you spend the whole time feeling as if you're moving forward but you get off exactly where you got on.
In light of the inconceivable love that Christ has given to us, does indifference make any sense? In light of the fact that the precious blood of the spotless Lamb of God was spilt on our behalf, not because we deserved it because we couldn't do anything about our sin -- in light that God was willing to put His only begotton on the cross for us -- does it make any sense not to be passionately committed to growing in every way possible?
The writer of Hebrews asks, "How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?" (Hebrews 2:3) God's call on your life is to grow. He's saying something to you right - "respond" Make the changes that are necessary to grow.
