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text for you to turn to. You're
welcome to use your Bible as we get to some of these texts
today. But I do have a topical message, not my normal way of
preaching, I guess. We normally do expositional and
go verse by verse and phrase by phrase, sometimes word by
word as we study the Word of God. But today, I just want to
go to some themes that we might see in the Bible and have a look
at some four ideas that we're going to look at here. Are you
familiar with go to the GP or something especially as a child
I remember this in my youth I don't know because I went to maybe
Christian school or something I'd have health checks every
year or maybe just because I was a sickly child I remember And
they'd take you there, and they'd have that check to see how tall
you are. You know, they'd have you step
back against that cold metal pole, you know, have that thing
come down upon your head and figure out exactly where you
were in line with the rest of the population of your age group,
right? They'd take your age and your height and look at that
growth chart and kind of see if you're behind in growth, average
in growth, or You probably aren't surprised
by this, but I think I was at the lower spectrum of the growth
chart as far as my height. But you don't really want to
be off the chart or too far behind on the chart, because that chart
is a measurement of your health, as it were. If you're not growing,
something is probably wrong with you physically. And so you want
to be growing. Now, physically, there's was something that we could do,
probably we'd all walk around and be giants or something like
that. But Jesus said in book 1225, and which of you with taking
thought can add to his stature one cubit? I promise you, it
doesn't work, right? You try to make yourself taller,
you can't. But there are things The sleep that we get, things
that we put into our body, don't put into our body, and those
things that we can control, we ought to seek to do it to the
best of our ability and make sure that physically we are growing
well. This morning, obviously, we're
not going to think about physical growth. growth chart that we be growing
spiritually as God intends us to be growing and so you need
to be progressing on the spiritual growth chart that verse that
we looked at in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 18 says but grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him
be glory both now and forever amen all right so there are things
that spiritually, we ought to be growing in, or things that
we ought to be developing in. There are four things that specifically
God put on my heart as I was praying. Several months ago we
were praying about the Retreat Center idea, and I'm still open
to that idea in the will of God, if God has that for us as a church,
but God put on my heart these four things that we're going
to look at, okay? And these four things are salvation, surrender, and service. And they are things that we could
look at in our life and say, where am I in that chart? Where
am I in that spiritual thing that God's word speaks about?
Where am I there? Because that really impacts me,
that impacts my family, that impacts my church. And so God, help us to grow in
grace. Let's pray this morning, then we'll get into the word
of God here. Father, we thank you for the
grace that you give. Thank you for the opportunity that we have
to come and study the Word of God this morning. And Father,
it's a topical message, but it's the Word of God. And Father,
we can look at the Word of God topically and go through and
just consider, what does the Bible say about this? And Father,
in these four vital areas as a church, these can be four things
that in our ministry that we often focus on, that we're praying
about and asking God for. And in our families, a desire
that we have salvation, sanctification, surrender, and service. And so
I pray, Spirit of God, will you help me as I speak. I pray, would
you give us ears to hear, would you give us grace to be free
from anything that would take away from our ability to focus
upon the Word of God, whether things that we've got planned
or things that are happening that, Father, we could really
attend upon the Word without distraction this morning. Father,
I pray that I would preach biblically, that I would preach practically,
and lovingly and powerfully the truth of the word of God. May
he bless the kids' class as they meet together just now. It's
in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right, so the four
great growth purposes that we can look at as a church and say,
I mean, these are things that are vital to us in our ministry. We really want to see God working
in all of these areas. And so we're going to personalize
it this morning and consider where we're at on these charts.
And so the first one is, where are you on the spiritual growth
chart of salvation? All right? That's the first thing,
right? We need Christ's life in us,
that we need that spiritual life. Every single one of us has a
physical birthday. Mine is July 2nd, 1976. And on that day, I was born in
La Crosse, Wisconsin, a beautiful area of Wisconsin along the river
that is flowing past here, the Mississippi River that is so
well I was born 200 years to the date of the signing of the
Declaration of Independence. I was almost a bicentennial bouncing
baby boy when I was born there some 46 years ago now. But every single one of us has
a And from that date, the doctor
can take that date of your birth and look at the growth chart
and begin to chart it out and say, OK, this is where you're
at based upon your age physically. Our spiritual growth chart begins
with our spiritual birth. It's not religious affiliation.
It's not even a day that you believe that there is a God,
but a day that you personally put your faith in Jesus Christ
and receive Him as your Savior. Jesus spoke about the new birth
and the spiritual birth to Nicodemus, a religious leader. A man that
had done everything religiously that somebody could do up to
that point in his life. Very religious. life. John 3 verse 1 says, There
was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night
and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with them. Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him,
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly,
truly, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
ye must be born again. And so it speaks about water
birth, it speaks about spiritual birth, and Jesus is speaking
about the new birth, saying, you know, we got physical birth,
and then you got spiritual birth. Physical birth is water birth. Having been the father of six,
the hospital, there's a point in time where the doctors might
say words that are encouraging as far as progress, and that
is for water growth, right? That water that's there, that
amniotic fluid that's around that baby in the womb, so God's
Word is speaking about physical birth, water birth, but then
it says, but you got to be born in the Spirit too. There has
to be a time where you experience that, that not just physical
life that you receive when you're conceived and then born into
this world, but you get a spiritual birth and a spiritual birthday. And so Jesus is speaking about
that day. Sometimes we call that day, the day of our salvation. Isaiah 45 verse 22 says, look
up to me and be saved all the ends of the earth. Well, neither is there salvation
in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved. And so you got this term,
Jesus said, you gotta be born again, gotta have that new life.
But again, we call it salvation. But if somebody is saved, and
there's something really bad that's happening, right? They're
in great danger. There's something that they have
to be rescued from that is taking place in their life. There's
a man in my church in New York City that I was an assistant
pastor at, and his name was Dave Carnes. When 9-11 happened, I
was at the church, and the pastor was away at a pastor's fellowship,
and when it happened, the pastor comes back, Dave Carnes stops
by the church on his way down to Ground Zero. Dave Carnes was
a Marine, he had been a police officer, and he had worked with
Steele. He told me those three things really prepared him for
what he did. He got down to the Brooklyn Bridge, he walked out,
down to Southern Manhattan, got down there to Ground Zero. They're
not letting anybody into that area, but he assessed it based
on his background with Steele. He looked at it with a mindset
of military and police as well, and he wanted to go out there,
they let him go. He found people buried in the
rubble 20 feet down. He heard voices down there. And
there was fires that were burning in the rubble of Ground Zero.
It's amazing that there was a pocket that was protected, that these
people had actually lived through the collapse of the buildings. He called his sister. He called
his wife, said, give them my coordinates here. We need some
firefighters. We need some other people to
help to rescue these people. And the only people that I know
of that were rescued out of ground zero are these two Port Authority
policemen that, by the grace of God, Dave Carnes helped save. That's what salvation is. Salvation
is somebody that is in great danger, their life is going to
end, but somebody gets in there and rescues them. Obviously,
when we're speaking about it spiritually, there's something
far worse. And that's eternal damnation in a lake of fire and
separation from God. And you know, sometimes I was
thinking about this recently, maybe some of you that have been
ill can kind of relate to this. Sometimes in life, there's tough
things. And we can be in our life like,
oh, you know, this is so heavy, this is such a burden. But understand
this, we are not in a fire. We're not separated from God
for all eternity. We're not listening to people
cry out in fear and anguish, screaming or hearing gnashing
of teeth like the Bible speaks about. There's beauty like you
walk out today and no matter if somebody's feeling miserable,
they can still look up and it's still sunny outside. But in hell's
darkness, And if you really start to think about it, I can't fathom
it, because sometimes in life there's things, I look at my
life and I say, I want to get out of this, this is horrible,
but there's hope, because if it's illness, it's going to pass,
if it's a bill, at some point maybe it's going to get paid,
if it's another physical trial or injury, I can recover from
that. But somebody in hell is in hell for all eternity. And it's not purgatory. I was
thinking about this recently as well. The idea of purgatory
is you go and you pay for your sin, and after you're done paying
for your sin, you get out of hell. But I understand this is
just my conjecture, but I don't think anybody in hell is gonna
be saying right things. I think what people will hear
in hell is the blasphemy and the cursing and the hatred that's
gonna come out of those hearts that were so hard against God. It's not gonna be a place of
repentance. And so we look at this this morning
and think, wow, you know, somebody really needs to get saved. They
need the life of Christ. They need Jesus to come and to
help them. Revelation 20 verse 13 says,
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and
hell delivered up the dead which were in them. And they were judged
every man according to their works. And death and hell were
cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And
whosoever was not found, written the book of life, was cast into
the lake of fire. It doesn't matter if they're nice. It doesn't
matter if they're good people. It doesn't matter if they tried
to be religious or anything like that. But what does matter is
that if they don't have Jesus Christ as their savior, they'll
spend eternity in the lake of fire. And Jesus Christ is the
Savior that came and died for his people's sins. Matthew 1.21,
and she shall bring forth his Son, and thou shalt call his
name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And
so salvation is when God effectually rescues us. The price has been
paid, the Savior did everything on the cross, but that point
in time and His finished work, what He
did when He died on the cross for us, that He paid the price
for our sin, where we personally put our faith in that and receive
God's gift of everlasting life. All we need it. Romans 6.23 says,
for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You know, tonight we get
to look at the cross. As we have the Lord's table,
why do we want to have that ceremony? Because God said to do it, but
also to recognize that, to keep in our minds what Jesus Christ
did when he paid for our sin on the cross. Again, has there
been a time in your life where you were born again? I wanna,
again, challenge this this morning with spiritual growth, but I
can't encourage somebody that doesn't have spiritual life to
grow spiritually. Because to get on the growth chart, you
gotta have that starting point. I'm not saying today that somebody
has to be able to say, well, that's the date that I got saved,
but there ought to be an experience that they can remember if they
don't know the date, that they can remember the day and remember
how God worked in their heart and where they were when they
bowed their head before God and said, dear God, I'm a sinner.
Your son died for me. I'd like to ask you to come into
my heart and to save me. Give me your gift of everlasting
life. There ought to be some recognition that that is when
spiritual life came into my life. And so where are you on the spiritual
growth chart of salvation? Secondly, the second one I wanna
look at is where are you on the spiritual growth chart of sanctification? Sanctification. Okay, so you
need Christ's life, that's salvation, and then sanctification is Christ
likeness. We need to be like Christ, we're
made into the image of Christ. Have you ever noticed that people
begin to look like those that they're around? It's kind of
interesting, and maybe we don't recognize this as much if it's
us, but the longer somebody is around their spouse, it's just
interesting. They take up their mannerisms.
You just see the other person, when that person speaks, you
can kind of see that reflection. Sometimes they say, and I've
noticed this as well, that you begin to look like your pets,
or your pets begin to look like you. You ever see somebody walking
along and you just look at the dog, you look at the person,
you just think, I'm not gonna say this out loud, but there's something
that just looks alike there. So I guess the warning is be
careful who you spend time with, right? That might happen. But
as a believer, We've got Christ in us. There ought to be, as
we spend time with Christ, there ought to be this transformation
that's taking place where our life is really beginning to look
more and more like Christ. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, but
we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the spirit of the Lord. And so we all with open face
beholding as in a glass, okay, how many looked in the mirror
today? All right, those that didn't look in a mirror, we kind
of probably may recognize that or something, right? But sometimes
you look in a mirror and you see your reflection there and
you think, right, I don't really want to even look in a mirror
maybe. Because there might be something there that I got to
really work hard at changing. And I'm just talking about physically,
and I've got to take the time to stop and to put this right. And maybe I'm just too busy,
I feel like, to really take time to look in that mirror and do
what I need to do. It might be harder even as far
as exercise or discipline like that, right? It's going to take
time, but I'm going to get there and really work on it because
I see that physically that something that needs to change. As a believer,
again, we're looking into the mirror of the Word of God and
we're seeing where we're at spiritually. And I don't know about you, but
I am excited about the meetings with Evangelist Mary Webb. I'm
excited that God's given us the opportunity. The only uncertainty
is where we're going to be meeting, you know, and who's going to
come as we invite people to come and things like that. But I'm
excited that day after day, our church is going to have the privilege
of having the mirror of the Word of God lifted up and reflecting
our life and Christ's life and seeing basically kind of where
we're at. You know, that's a great thing
for somebody that hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
They really desire that. You know, that's a great thing,
because they can go and say, God just challenged me this week.
God, I'm just gonna come with an open heart and open mind,
and if the Spirit of God speaks to me about something in my life
that by God's grace, I wanna change that for God and for God's
glory. Again, I'm using the term sanctification
this morning. And sanctification means set
apart from our sin and set apart unto God. All right, and that's
the two aspects of sanctification is that God took us from being
in the world and he put us over by him, right? He identified
us as his children. Some other terms in the Bible
for sanctification, that idea is godliness or holy or holiness. This idea that we begin to look
like Christ. I just wanna share some simple
points about sanctification. If it isn't godly, it's not of
God. There's a lot in our day that
say, oh, you know, a Christian has license to do this or that,
or maybe you go to the church and you're like, really? I mean,
this is the way a Christian acts or looks, but we can say very
clearly, if it's not godly, it's not of God. Titus 1.1 says, Paul,
a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to
the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth,
which is after godliness. Okay, the truth is after what?
Godliness. And so you can very quickly evaluate
something and say, is it true or is it not? If it's not godly,
it's not what? It's not true. And so we can
identify that. And so to look at our life and
say, again, I wanna be sanctified. I wanna look like Christ. Well,
if it's not godly, it's not of God. God set us apart when we
got saved. Jude 1.1, Jude, the servant of
Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by
God, the Father, set apart by God the Father. And we are to
keep ourselves set apart for God, Romans 12, one and two.
It says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God. I'm gonna come back to this verse,
but it's saying, when we present ourselves to God, what does God
want? Somebody that is holy. Somebody that is set apart from
sin. We gotta discipline ourselves
in guarding our lives, 1 Peter 4.8. is profitable unto all things,
having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is
to come." I got into 2023, and I don't know that this is my
New Year's resolution, and you can't tell by looking at me,
but I started doing some curls. I'm doing some exercises. And
the Bible says, well, that's profitable a little bit. But
it says, godliness is profitable unto all things. And so if we're
gonna put a little effort in and say, okay, I'm gonna physically,
I'm gonna do some exercise, and maybe some of you have some exercises
that you do, whether walking or other things that you look
at your life and say, physically, I need to be disciplined, that
God says, that's okay, but the better thing is godliness, because
godliness is profitable, not just in this life, but in the
next. So godliness has great benefits. 1 Timothy 6.6 says,
but godliness with contempt is great gain. And so if somebody
is righteous, doing what's right, sanctified, and that's gonna
be for their benefit. That's gonna be a blessing in
their life. We have everything we need to be sanctified. God's
given it to us. 2 Peter 1, 3 and 4 says, according
as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain
unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath
called us to glory and virtue, whereby are given unto us exceeding
great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers
of the divine nature. Now we're saying godliness is
like Christ, okay, so God's given us what we need to be able to
do that so that we can be partakers of the divine nature, so that
Christ could be seen in our lives, having escaped the corruption
that is in the world through lies. And so, somebody argued
today, we can't really live in victory, but God's word absolutely
teaches us that by God's grace, his spirit, his word, that God
has given us everything that we need to live in godliness. Jesus has a high standard for
us to look like him. When Peter 1.16 says, because
it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy. And so the standard
is the righteousness of God unattainable by the law, but obtainable through
the blood of Christ and the spirit of God and the word of God. And
so what God has done is awesome. He's made it possible for us
to actually live a life that is separate from the world that's
ungodly that we're living in. So we need to carefully do that
by God's grace. 2 Corinthians 10 5 says, casting
down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ. Now, if I were to ask you, how
careful should we be in our life? How disciplined should we be
in this area of sanctification? Well, that verse said that by
God's grace, we ought to scrutinize even the thoughts that we have.
That every thought would be in obedience to God. And David said,
let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be
acceptable in eyesight. And again, somebody could say,
but there's no way that I can live my life like that. But by
the grace of God, there is your Christ. God has made it possible
again for us to be sanctified. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. It says,
there is no temptation taken to you, but such as is common
to men. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation
also make way to escape that you may be able to bear it. And
what that's saying is, I can't say to God, God, I can't have
victory over my tongue. I can't have victory over my
eyes. I can't have victory over my ears. I can't have victory
over my spirit, my attitude, my deceitfulness, right? But
I can say, by the grace of God, I can have victory because God
is not gonna allow me to be tempted above that which I'm able, but
he's also gonna make a way to escape that I can veer it. Now,
this is vital. The Bible says, awake to righteousness
and sin not. For some have not the knowledge
of God. I speak this to your shame. So say somebody is saved and
they got onto the growth chart, but then we look at the next
chart, and the chart is sanctification, a set-apart life that is lived
for God's glory. We've got to be able to say,
by the grace of God, I'm doing well, I'm growing in my Christ-likeness
after we have Christ's life. And then the third thing is where
are you on the spiritual growth chart of surrender, okay? So
we spoke about salvation, that's the life of Christ. Sanctification
is Christ-likeness, my life like Christ. And then the third thing,
surrender, is yielded to Christ. Guys, if you don't mind, just
for a second, yeah, just maybe wait till after the service,
okay? All right. And so, surrender, yielded to
Christ. At our Youth Activity on Tuesday
night, We had a few teens that were over, or one teen that was
over with our teens that were there, and there was a wee competition
that was taking place, and we looked at the life of Samuel
when we did our Bible study that night. The challenge to the teens
was we have a testimony, keep it clean, right? Everybody has
that testimony. One Samuel 12 too, Samuel said,
now behold, the king walketh before you, and I am old and
gray-headed, and I've walked before you from
my childhood even unto this day. All right, now, think with me. Can you think of anybody in the
Bible that served God from infancy? Maybe the Lord Jesus Christ,
obviously, but just think of God's servant. It was interesting
for me to see that phrase, as Samuel said, I have walked before
you from my childhood unto this day. And if you know the story
Samuel's brought, dedicated to the Lord at the house of God Hannah, but the reason his life
had been used for God is that as a child, Samuel's life was
surrendered to God. And so 1 Samuel 3.10 says, and
the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel,
then Samuel answered, speak for thy servant, hear it. You know, surrender is me saying
to God, okay, God, whatever you want. Speak, Lord, for thy servant
here, I'm your servant, I surrender to you whatever you want. Again,
that scripture that we already read, I beseech you, therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that you what? Present your bodies, a living
sacrifice. And again, that's that surrender
opportunity just to set ourselves before God to be used by God. The Apostles Paul's salvation
and surrender took place at the same time. As you look at it,
as he got saved, he immediately surrendered his life to the Lord. Acts 9.6 says, and he trembling
and astonished at Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And
so Paul immediately said, God, my life is yours. However you
want to use my life, use it. And there's some stories that,
biographies that you can read where God worked in that way.
James Stewart, that was that young footballer that I've spoken
about, as he got saved, he said to God, gotta walk away from
football at the age of 14, and from what would have been a career
in professional football. But as he got saved, he said,
I surrender my life to God. and God used him as a child evangelist
in Scotland. Praise God, God has a plan for
a surrendered life for Paul. In Acts 9, it was to serve him
with the gospel. The Lord said unto Ananias, go
thy way, for he, Paul, is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name
before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for
I will show him namesake. You might think, Pastor
Ben, I don't want to surrender. You just read about Paul. Paul
said, all right, what will thou have me to do, Lord? And God
says to Ananias, the guy that's going to go talk to him, tell
him he's going to go and he's going to suffer a lot from me.
If I were to ask you today, did Paul have a rough ministry or
did he have a great ministry? You know what? We know from the
scripture that Paul had an exciting ministry as he served God. from
Philippians, or I'm sorry, from prison, he wrote the book, Philippians,
to the church at Philippi, that letter. And there in that text,
the theme of that text is joy. He said in chapter one, verse
three, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. Verse four,
always in every prayer of mine for you all making requests with
joy. Verse 21, to me to live is Christ
and to die is gain. Chapter four, verse six, be careful
for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Verse 11, not that I speak
in respect of want, he's in prison. For I've learned whatsoever state
I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased,
I know how to abound everywhere and in all things. I'm instructed
both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer
need. I can do all things through Christ,
which strengthens me. All right, so I mean, you read
the book of Philippians, you're like, this guy is in prison, it's not going
well, you know his story, he's been beaten, he's been shipwrecked,
he's gone through all those things, but he can speak about, I found
in whatever state I am, there went to be content. The peace,
that passive understanding that he's speaking about. He had that
sweet knowledge of the presence of God in his surrendered life.
You know, this past Thursday, my wife and I went to the Western
to visit Marielle and keep praying for her. She's ended up back
in the hospital. She broke her femur. And since surgery, she's
just not done very well in her recovery, but she's getting there,
all right? But as we visited with her, her spirit was joyful.
She's talking about the goodness of God. She's asking us about
what we've got going on. She's praying for our church
as we go through this time of waiting on God to allow us to
purchase the property. And just look at her life. She's
got joy. I mean, she's going through a
heartache, tough time, but she just knows the grace of God.
And you look at her life and you realize she's surrendered.
and she is submitted to God. Mark 8.35 says, for whosoever
will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose
his life for my sakes and the gospels, the same shall save
it. God may not call you into full-time
ministry if you say to God, okay, God, whatever you want me to
do with my life, I'll do. That's what surrender is. It's us putting
our life on that altar and saying, God, it's not mine anymore. I
submit this to you. But if somebody will do that,
it may not be full-time ministry, but it's an opportunity to just
say to God, okay, God, hands off my life. God, whatever you
want. You know, as we look at that
growth chart, where are you on that growth chart? Have you said
to God, okay, God, whatever you want me to do, I'll do, because
that really leads us to the final point I want to look at, and
that's service. And so it's salvation, that's
the starting point of the growth chart, sanctification, that's
Christ's likeness, then it's surrender, yielded to Christ,
but then it's serving Christ, what can I do for Christ? There's something in the Bible
called a bond slave. A bond slave was an indentured servant that
got to the point where they had paid off their debt to the person
that they were working for, but they realized, you know what,
I don't wanna leave. I love my master, I love the family that
he's given to me, I love the way that things have worked out
in his household, so I wanna be a bond slave. And they would
take that man and they would bore his ear through with an
awl on the door to mark him that he had identified in that way
that he was not a slave to his master because he had to pay
off his debt, but that he was serving him out of love. Now
in that position, the master would assign his hours, would tell him what to do, and
he would do that, but he would trust in the kindness and the
grace of his master. You know, interestingly, as you
read through the scriptures and read the New Testament, what
you'll see about the great men of God is that they recognized
that who they were was just servants to God, and servants to Jesus
Christ. Paul, in Romans chapter one,
verse one, It says, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1.10,
Paul said, do I now persuade men of God, or do I seek to please
men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of
Christ. Epaphras, Colossians 4.12. Epaphras,
who is one of you, a servant of Christ. Okay, that's just
a man in the church, but he was a servant of Christ. James, James
1.1, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter, 2 Peter 1.1, Simon Peter,
a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. Jude, Jude 1.1. Jude,
the servant of Jesus Christ. John, in the book of Revelation,
in Revelation 1.1. It says, the revelation of Jesus
Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants things
that which must shortly come to pass. And he sent and signified
it by his angel unto his servant, John. And I just love looking
at the scripture and seeing these men. And they said, I am the
servant of Jesus Christ. And because they were surrendered,
they were also as a servant, what were they doing? They were
serving him. There was something that they
picked up, and that's what God wanted them to do with their
life, and so that's what they were doing, because they were
the servant of God. I had a young man in our church
in Michigan that got saved. He was in his 20s, and he had
read the Left Behind series by, I'm trying to think of the man's
name, LaHaye, something LaHaye, right? Tim LaHaye. And so he
had read that, got convicted by the stories that what's gonna
happen in end times, he knew enough to pray and ask Jesus
Christ to save him. And so he did. He ended up at
our church two hours away because his brother went to our church,
and we went over to that man's house that night, and we were
there with the teens, and Earl was sitting in the corner, and
he listened to the testimony of his brother and recognized,
that's what I've done, I've accepted Christ. I want to be a part of
this church. He built a room in his brother's pole barn to
live in so that he could attend our church. He was kind of skilled
in that way, carpenter. And we began working together
on the church property, and on my house I had a project going
on, and I got to disciple Earl. He was excited about God, excited
about growing in the faith, and so it came to the point of him
joining the church, and I was speaking to him about it, and
he said this, and I'll never forget it. He said, what do I
do when I become a member? Do I mow the grass? And I thought,
what an interesting way to look at church membership, why? Because
he's thinking, if I'm a part of something, then I want to
what? Do something. And it was just natural to him.
I want to serve Christ. And there ought to be something
in our hearts that looks at it and says, right, okay, God saved
me, I'm not going to hell. God sanctified me, I'm not bound
in my sin. I surrender to him, God, whatever
you want me to do. And when God says, do this, guess
what? There ought to be that response
to say, I desire to serve God. And so this morning, as we look
at that growth chart of service, where are you on that growth
chart? Are you starting to pick some things up and say, okay,
I want to do this for God. I can do this. I may not be able
to get up and preach or something like that, but I can do something
for God. I can invest my life for God.
I can be able to speak to people about Christ. There's so many
things that we could do. I remember as a child, my parents
were kind of concerned about my growth. They took me to the
doctor. I remember them measuring my
hand, doing some x-ray or something. There's a growth plate in there.
And I think at that point or something, my dad might have
asked me, does it bother you being short? And I thought, not
until you said that, I guess I'd look at people like this
and think we're eye to eye, or something like that. By the way,
if you struggle with your height, it's really not being short,
it's being vertically challenged. But you get more food when you
get your food. You get bigger seats in an airplane.
I'm just saying there's some perks to it, if that's you. There's
not much we can do about it, right? But there's a lot of things
physically in my life I can do something about. I can grow and
be healthy and be on that growth chart where I need to be in other
ways. But when we're speaking about
spiritual, I just wanna remind us this morning that the things
that we've spoken about this morning, we can excel on those
growth charts. Salvation gets us onto it. Has
there ever been a time in your life where you personally put
your faith in Jesus Christ? That's where it begins, you know,
where we recognize that God loved me, he died on the cross for
my sin and by his shed blood, I can be forgiven of my sin.
But then the next thing is sanctification. And I could, God sanctifies me,
he sets me apart, but I gotta work with God on that, I can't,
you know, a Christian can be a carnal Christian, they can
hold on to sin and they can grow really slow. Or they can deal
with sin. and let God begin to change their
life so that they're Christ-like. When somebody sees them, they're
like, there's something different about you because you don't do the
things that we do. And then all of us can say to
God, God, I take my hands off my life, I surrender. Whatever
you want me to do, I'll do. And that brings us to the final
point, doesn't it? Like, okay, what am I gonna do? Because saying
I'll serve God, you know, surrender my life is just saying it, but
serving God, that's doing it. And so those four things, if
we pray about a church, you know, we'll get in a property, there's
some exciting things happening, but please remember these four
things as a church. This is what we're burdened about
in our church. We're burdened about salvation, sanctification,
surrender, and service, because those will be vital to what we
desire God to do in our lives, our family, and in our church.
All right, let's pray. Father, I just pray that the
Spirit of God would really anchor these four things in our hearts
and minds, and it may be that somebody is thinking this morning,
they'd have to say, you know, Pastor, I am not saved. Now,
I'm religious, maybe, and I think good thoughts about God, and
I'll talk to people and tell them, I believe in God. But Father,
that's not salvation. Salvation is a point in time,
a day where we accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. So if somebody
recognizes this morning that they're not saved, please give
them courage to go ahead and take that step and bow their
head and put their faith in Jesus Christ and what He did on the
cross. The Father of all of us that are saved by grace, I pray
that we be sanctified. It might be that somebody's thinking
right now about a sin that they've got that maybe nobody else knows
about, but they've been unwilling to deal with that sin. They're
not living a sanctified life. Father, I pray that the Spirit
of God give them grace to turn from their sin and repent of
it and find your forgiveness. And that, Father, it's entirely
possible that we could be a believer and not surrender, that was spoken about in Romans
chapter 12. And Father, I pray God give us
grace to step up by faith and say, I'm gonna put myself on
that altar. And then I'm not just gonna say it, but I'm gonna
do it. I'm gonna serve and look for opportunities to serve God.
Father, we don't have to have great believers in our church,
but we ought to be growing. We ought to be people that say,
you know what? I'm gonna grow and I'm gonna be better for the
Lord and for his work. And so help us to do that. I
say in Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen. Let's stand and sing
I Surrender All. It's a great declaration.
4 Spiritual Growth Charts
A topical message to evaluate and encourage spiritual growth.
| Sermon ID | 2523132412485 |
| Duration | 41:38 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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