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Well, this morning, Lord willing,
we're going to wrap up this little mini series that we've been doing,
talking about growing in Christ, just what it means to know Him,
what it means to grow in Him. And we're going to, Lord willing,
finish that up this morning as we talk about the last couple
of commitments related to what it means to grow in Jesus Christ. And I shared last week, for those
of you that were here, for those of you who weren't, that as we
conclude this morning, We're going to provide an opportunity
for you to publicly affirm that commitment, if that is the desire
of your heart, to want to continue growing in your relationship
with Christ, if you know Him. If you don't know Him, we certainly
hope that through the things that are shared from God's Word
this morning, that you might come to a fuller knowledge of
who Jesus is and what it means to have faith in Him and to walk
with Him. And so that's our goal this morning,
to communicate those truths. But I want to remind you that
as we conclude this morning, that I'll be providing an opportunity
for those of you that would be inclined just to publicly affirm
that commitment to grow in Christ. But let's go ahead and open with
a word of prayer, ask that the Lord would really be active in
our midst this morning. Father, we do ask that you would
prepare our hearts, Lord, and prepare our minds. Father, that
for all of us, this would be more than just an exercise that
we do on Sunday mornings, but God, that you might cause us
to be of a heart and of a mind to hear your voice, Lord, that
you might speak clearly through your word, Father, that you'd
give grace to me as I would seek to communicate it. I pray that
you would help me to do that accurately, and Lord, anything
that is inconsistent with what you revealed, I pray that you
would just make right that. Lord, I pray that you would do
in all of our hearts the things that you desire, that we might
have a greater awareness of who you are and the wonder of the
salvation that you have provided in Christ and the privilege and
joy of what it means to belong to you and to grow with you.
We ask that you would do all of this in Christ's precious
name. Amen. You know, is it a little bit
warm in here? There's mixed reports here. If
we can just get a little more air circulating somehow for a
little bit. What? Okay, all right. It's a mixture. Some are hot.
You're cold, right, Jessica? Okay, well, maybe it'll stay
warm for a while. We'll do our best. Well, as we've been going
through this series, I've shared with you at the very beginning
of this series a few weeks ago that I believe the desire that
God would want to cultivate in all of our hearts is that there
would be such an intense hunger to know Him, such an intense
hunger to grow in our relationship with Him, that it would radically
impact our lives. It would affect the way that
we live on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and
Friday and Saturday and even Sunday, that there would be this
desire that God would cultivate in our hearts that would be real
and genuine and would cause us to want to grow and to want to
take hold of all the things that He has made available to us in
Jesus Christ and what it means to know Him and walk with Him.
So that's really been the focus as we've gone through all of
this. We began a number of weeks ago talking about the necessity
of growth for a Christian. If a person claims to be a believer,
If they claim to have faith in Jesus Christ, there should be
a pattern of growth in their lives. And we looked at a couple
of different passages in the book of 2 Peter. Probably the
clearest is right at the end of 2 Peter chapter 3, when Peter
says in verse 18 that we are to grow in the grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the picture that we've been
looking at to help us understand that is just that of physical
growth. When a baby's born, the baby's
complete, it has everything it needs for its life, and yet there's
a very understood sense that that baby is going to grow. And
we would anticipate that and we provide for that baby in a
physical way and in an emotional way and social way that they
might grow. And the same is true for anyone who comes to faith
in Jesus Christ. When they're born again, that's
the starting point, but God desires to see increasing growth. And
we talked about in the midst of that, that the measure of
growth, the way that we know whether or not a person is growing
in the way that God intends, is the extent to which they reveal
what the Bible refers to as the fruit of the Spirit. Those qualities
that are reflective of God's character. Paul mentions them
in Galatians chapter 5, the qualities of love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. If
a person is growing as a Christian, those qualities should be seen
in an increasing measure. Peter, in 2 Peter chapter 1,
identifies a similar list of qualities that reflect the same
aspect of God's character. Christ lives inside of a person.
The reality of that should continually be being expressed through that
person's life. And then we spent some time talking about, well,
how do you grow? If we're supposed to grow as Christians, and if
that's what God desires, and if it's measurable in the sense
of there being specific qualities that we should see in a person's
life who's growing, how do you go about doing that? And the
answer we found was in 1 Peter 2. And let's go ahead and turn
there just to refresh us again. 1 Peter 2, to see the very clear answer of
how you go about growing as a Christian. In chapter 2, verses 1 to 3,
Peter says, Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile
and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes long
for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect
to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. Now,
the admonition there is very clear, that as believers, as
those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, the first thing
we need to do is be willing to put aside those things that compromise
our growth, those things that are related to what he says in
verse 1, malice, guile, hypocrisy, envy, all slander. And he says,
like newborn babes, we're to long for the pure milk of God's
Word, that by it, by God's Word, we grow. And the simple principle
is the only way a Christian grows in their life as God is working
in their life and God is prompting and directing in their life,
the only way they grow is as they feed on God's Word. In a sense, we could equally
say as they feed on Jesus Christ, because God's Word is the revelation
of Jesus Christ. The only way you and I grow is
when we take God's Word into our life, into our minds, into
our hearts, and we apply it to our lives. That is how we grow. You don't grow primarily by just
reading books or just going to church or just listening to Christian
music or just doing this or just doing that. You grow, and I grow,
to the extent that we take God's Word and we eat it. in the sense
of allowing it to fill our hearts, our minds, our lives, and we
apply it. That is how we grow. And in light
of those things, then the necessity of growth, the means of growth
being God's word, then we've been talking these last couple
of weeks about commitments for growth that are necessary on
our part in response to all that God is and in response to all
that God has done and is doing and continues to desire to do. How do we go about growing? And
we've looked at this as we've started to talk about these commitments
in terms of Jesus being the great physician. He mentions in Mark
chapter 15. or in Mark chapter nine, I believe
it is, in verse 15, that he didn't come to heal those who are well,
he came to heal those who are sick. And in that sense, we understand
him to be a great physician. And so as we've looked at these
commitments, we've looked at them in terms of Jesus being
our great physician and our response to the things that he desires
to do in our lives to make us whole and to heal us in the deepest
sense of the word, spiritually. So those are the things that
we have addressed and that leads us up to where we're at this
morning. We've talked about seven different commitments. The first
commitment there on the front page of your notes is a commitment
to wholeheartedly trust the great physician. We have to walk by
faith. We have to take him at his word.
We have to trust his desire for us, believing that he's worthy
and that he's faithful and that he's good and that he's wise
and that he's kind and that he's powerful. A second commitment
necessary on our parts is a commitment to quit eating junk food. And
what I mean by that, as we talked about it, was there are so many
things that we feed ourselves on in a spiritual sense that
will destroy us if we're not careful. The things that we allow
to come into our minds, the things that we expose ourselves to.
There's a lot of junk food out there in a spiritual sense. And
we talked in detail about that. And we need to be committed to
quitting it because it destroys our appetite for God's word.
And those things will deceive us and they're deadly. Third
thing we talked about then was a commitment to ask continually
for the Great Physician's help, recognizing our own weakness
and vulnerability, that we pray and we looked at a lot of different
Psalms in particular where David and others cry out to the Lord
for God to help them as they would trust Him and as they would
grow. Then we looked, number four, at a commitment to order
life around living with the Great Physician. And there we looked
in Matthew chapter 11 as Jesus invites us to come to him and
to learn from him and to really, in essence, allow our lives to
be ordered around knowing him. It's uncanny the things that
we will so quickly order our lives around that we think are
going to bring some sense of benefit or pleasure to us. Whether
it's food, whether it's television, whether it's some kind of an
event or experience or whatever, we're very willing to make a
lot of sacrifices in order to participate in those things that
we think are going to bring us benefit. And again, if we recognize
that Jesus is the great physician, that he is good, he is kind,
he's wise, he's awesome, how much more should we be willing
to order our life around learning from him and living with him? Then we look, number five, at
a commitment to follow in detail everything the great physician
prescribes. And we look there in James chapter two, or I'm
sorry, James chapter one, as well as in Matthew chapter seven,
where the truth comes out that we need to be not only those
who hear God's word, but do God's word, lest we deceive ourselves. Again, it's not enough just to
hear, but we need to apply what we hear and trust him and put
into practice the things that he prescribes for us. And then
this morning, we're gonna look at these last two commitments,
the commitment number six, to savor all of the great physicians'
medicine, and then number seven, a commitment to be involved with
other patients in the treatment process. And as we address these
things, I think they'll become clear as we work our way through. So, that is where we've been,
and that is, Lord willing, where we're going for the rest of the
time this morning. So let's look at this sixth commitment
then, a commitment to savor all of the great physicians' medicine. Now, you may remember the movie
years ago called Mary Poppins. And there's a song in that movie
where Mary Poppins sings to these children, just a spoonful of
sugar helps the medicine go down. And for any of us, taking medicine
is not something that we typically like to do, particularly if it
is some kind of a liquid cough syrup or something like that.
I mean, I don't care how much cherry extract or grape extract
or whatever they may put in that stuff, it tastes terrible. And
if you've ever had the experience of taking a pill where you accidentally
bite the pill or if it's one of those gel caps and it accidentally
oozes out, I mean there is a bitter, hideous, gross, terrible taste. And for many of us, the thought
of taking medicine, it's not an exciting thought because there's
a lot of pain and discomfort that can be associated with that.
And yet the nature of God and the character of God and His
goodness and the blessing of what He has provided for us in
His Word and in Jesus Christ and all that He desires for us
is of such goodness and greatness that we should be of a heart
and of a mind that we literally savor and delight in God's truth
to us when he gives us his medicine through his word. And as he applies
that to our lives, it should be something that we savor, not
just that we kind of grit our teeth and, OK, I got to take
this because it's supposed to be good, you know, but there
should be a joy and a delight in God's word. And we see this
in many places throughout scripture. Let me have you turn, first of
all, to Psalm chapter one. Psalm chapter one. We'll try
to establish this point. Because again, part of what this
point helps us to consider in our own lives is to think about
how do we respond to God's word? What is our appetite for God's
word? When we hear his word taught, when we read his word on our
own, when we interact with his truth, is it something that we
delight in? Is it something that we long
for, that we savor? Or is it a different experience
for us? If it's not something that brings
great delight, great joy, great anticipation, great savoring,
then there's something wrong in our hearts that we need to
consider. Listen to what David affirms in Psalm chapter 1, and
I'll start at verse 1. He says, how blessed is the man,
in other words, how happy, how fulfilled and blessed is the
man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand
in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But
verse two, his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his
law, he meditates day and night. And then he goes on to describe
what this person will be like. Verse three, he will be like
a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit
in season and its leaf does not wither. And in whatever he does,
he prospers. So he's contrasting the man that
listens to the counsel of ungodly people and who buys into that
and listens and stands with those people and sits with those people
and basically has a pattern of life that is following after
the teachings and the ways of those who have no interest in
God at all. He's contrasting that kind of
a person with one who delights in God's truth. who is eager
to want to know, well, what does God say? What does God think?
What has God revealed and declared about this? And there's a delight.
There's a joy. And that person becomes of such
a stature, he says, they're like a tree planted by streams of
water. It yields its fruit. In other
words, it bears fruit. It doesn't worry about or fear
when heat comes, when all the external pressure comes. There's
no fear. Why? Because they're grounded.
They're rooted next to the source, to the living water. And so there's
delight and there's joy. We see this also over in Psalm
19. Psalm chapter 19. And in Psalm 19, David is, first
of all, affirming the wonder of God's revelation and creation
And then he goes on to talk about the wonder of God's revelation
through his word. It's a great psalm to read of
how God has declared his goodness and his greatness. And after
David has identified the wonderful blessing and power and benefit
of God's word in verse 7, He says in verse seven, the law
of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the
Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord
are right, rejoicing the heart and the commandment of the Lord
is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are
true all together. They are righteous all together.
He's affirming the sufficiency, the power, the greatness, the
goodness, the truthfulness, the benefit of God's word. And then
listen to what he says in verse 10. He says, they are more desirable,
there's that word again, more desirable than gold, yes, than
much fine gold. They are sweeter also than honey
in the drippings of the honeycomb. And when you and I grab hold
of the sense of the greatness and the goodness of God and His
power and His majesty and His truthfulness, in all the wonder
of His grace that He revealed in Jesus Christ, when Christ
came and took on human flesh and bore the pain and the agony
and the rejection of His own Father when He hung on the cross,
when He did that for you and for I because He loved us, And
we recognize that that's the fullest demonstration and expression
of God's love. We can see that all of his truth,
all that he has revealed through his word and through the person
of work of Jesus Christ, there's nothing that compares to that.
And there's nothing that is to be more desirable and more sweeter
to us than that. And see, again, we get caught
up and we get misled from all of that. Why? Because we give
ourselves to things that have the appearance of desirability
and of sweetness and of goodness. But in the end, they're just
like a bitter pill that leaves a wretched taste in our mouth.
when what God has and what God desires is so much better. And
so there's to be this sense of savoring and of delighting in
God and in His ways and all that He's revealed in His Word. I
don't know if you've ever seen a dog chew on one of these rawhide
bones, you know, these big rawhide bones that they can get. We used
to have a beagle growing up and we would give him one of these
bones periodically. And man, when we gave him one
of those bones, I mean, you would think it was dog heaven. I mean,
it would just go crazy. You know, his tail would be flapping
and he'd just be sitting in the corner just. just gnawing on
this thing, you know, and attacking it and just going after it. And
if you would go to our dog and try to pull this bone away, I
mean, it was like you do that at the peril of your own life,
you know. I mean, they don't want to have anything to do with
it. What are they doing? They're savoring it. They're
loving it. They're chewing on it. They're
just like they're in dog heaven. And for me, as simple as that
is, that's a picture of the sense of savoring and delighting in
God's word that, you know, it shouldn't be just a matter of,
OK, all right, I got to read my Bible. OK, all right. The
Lord bless you. Thank you. Amen. No, there should
be a hunger, a delight, a passion because it's life. It's life. God's Word is sufficient. It's
powerful. It's able to meet our deepest
need and to give answers to the things that we are puzzled over
as we seek God and as we learn from Him. Now, I ask the question
here in your notes, how do we learn to savor God's Word? How
do we cultivate that sense of delighting in God's Word and
longing for His Word? And I believe the answer to that
is found in the fact that we need to train ourselves to feast
on what is good and savor God's word by replacing the lust for
other things with the lust for God himself. Did I write that
in your notes there? OK. That's what we need to do. You and I hunger. All of us hunger. All of us have cravings. All
of us have things that we lust after. The question is, are we
lusting after and are we longing for that which is true and that
which is ultimately fulfilling and ultimately satisfying? I believe scripture identifies
a number of things that are false desires that we easily give ourselves
to. And I want to identify a few
of those things. Because it's very easy for us
to fall into the pursuit of these wrong lusts. And I'm using the
word lust in the sense of a strong, compelling, consuming desire. that drives us. That's what a
lust is. And it can have any number of
things as its object, but a lust is not necessarily a bad thing.
I mean, there's a very real sense in which we're to lust after
God, to long for Him with a strong, consuming, compelling, controlling
desire in our lives. Let me identify a few things
that I think represent false lusts for us. The first is what
I'll call, letter A here, the lust of busyness. The lust of
busyness. Now again, I know it's difficult.
These things may not apply directly to you, but probably you know
other people for whom these things may apply. I'm saying that tongue
in cheek. Let's be thinking of ourselves
here. Let me have you turn to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter
10. Just an amazing little incident
that is communicated for us here by Dr. Luke. He was a physician
and an interesting perspective on things that transpired. But
in Luke chapter 10, verses 38 through 42, there's a little
event that transpires between Jesus and a woman named Mary
and a woman named Martha. And let me read the narrative
and then make just a couple of comments here. Verse 38, Luke
10, says, Now as they were traveling along, he entered a certain village.
And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. And she had
a sister called Mary, who moreover was listening to the Lord's word,
seated at his feet. You get the idea here of what's
going on. Verse 40. Now that's a pretty bold rash statement for her to make
to the Lord himself. You know, Lord, tell her to get
off of her bunnies and get to work. She's not doing anything
here. And so Martha, you can tell,
is agitated. And the text says she's distracted with all of
her preparations. And she's basically looking over
at Mary and saying, this is a lazy woman, Lord, command her to get
up and get busy. But look at how Jesus responds.
This is so insightful. Verse 41. Says, the Lord answered
and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered
about so many things, but only a few things are necessary, really
only one. For Mary has chosen the good
part, which shall not be taken away from her. I've often wondered
what Martha did at that point. The text doesn't say, but I imagine
she just stood there dumbfounded because here she is engaged in
all of these preparations for having the Lord himself in her
house. And so she's busy cooking, cleaning,
who knows what she's doing. And here's Mary just sitting
and listening to Jesus. I mean, what gall she must have. I mean, doesn't she know all
these things that have to be done? So Martha comes and she
exclaims this or proclaims this to Jesus and tells Jesus to tell
Mary to get up and get busy. And Jesus says, Martha, Martha,
you're missing the point. Mary has chosen what is good. You've allowed yourself to become
distracted with 101 things, but Mary has chosen what is good
and it won't be taken from her. There's so many little things
that are transpiring there. Have you ever felt where you've
just wanted to, in a sense, sit at Jesus's feet? And there is
such a pressure in our culture today to be busy, isn't there?
I mean, to have a lot of stuff going on. That seems to be the
thing that we often communicate to other people to give some
sense of just how significant we are and how active we are. Oh man, I've just been so busy.
Man, you just can't believe what's been going on. I read an interesting
commentary on this whole dynamic of busyness in our culture and
in our day and age that reflected on the fact that, you know, 15,
20 years ago, people used to brag about how much they had,
you know, the possessions that they had and what they could
do. Nowadays, what we talk about is how busy we are, as if there's
some added significance to our lives because, man, I just got
so much going on, you know, I'm just, oh, it's just unbelievable.
I got this, I got this, I got this. Well, I think Jesus has
some very specific things to say with respect to our busyness.
Because I think the truth is that oftentimes our busyness
is something that shields us from the simplicity of listening
to God's voice. And oftentimes our busyness is
ultimately motivated by a hunger to find significance in the approval
of other people, rather than to simply be in the presence
of Jesus, content to listen to Him and to walk with Him. because
we're so hungry to be respected, so hungry to be approved, so
hungry to be liked, so hungry to be well thought of. We're
busy doing all kinds of things because we want to make our house
look really good when the people come over. There's nothing wrong
with that to one sense, but as you see, it's an issue of what
motivates us. And that lust for busyness and that lust for finding
significance in the approval of other people needs to be replaced
with a lust to hear God's voice. And to not be concerned about
what all the other people think, but to be concerned about what
God has to say. And that's something that hits
deep in our hearts. I know it does for me on a daily
basis, that whole issue of am I more concerned about what people
think or am I content to trust and to live in the presence of
Jesus, content with what He thinks and what He has to say. So the
lust of busyness is one danger that needs to be avoided and
replaced with a lust to hear God's voice and content to listen
to Him. A second lust, letter B, is simply
the lust of food. And in this instance, I'm using
that word in the physical sense of food. A lust to have our physical
appetite for food satisfied. And I think in more ways than
we realize, we're consumed with this. Turn over to John chapter
4. I'll just identify where I see this come out real quickly. The lust for food. There's nothing
wrong with having the natural desires for appetite that God
has given to us, but it can very easily cross over into a preoccupation
that takes us away from pleasing God. In John chapter 4, Jesus
is on his way to Galilee and he passes through an area called
Samaria and there he encounters a woman. And you may be familiar
with this story where he interacts with this woman and she ends
up coming to faith in him. But I want us to look at not
so much that whole incident of Jesus and the woman and all that
transpired there, but I want you to see the disciples' response
to this event after it has happened. Now, just to help us understand
what's going on, if you look in John 4, verse 6, or actually
verse 5, it says that, So he, Jesus, came to a city of Samaria
called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to
his son Joseph. And Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus
by the well, and it was about the sixth hour. Now, the thing
I want to emphasize there is the text says very clearly that
Jesus was tired. And by implication, there's no
question that he was thirsty. He was hungry. He had been traveling
for a long time. And traveling in those days was
obviously radically different than what we know. And he was
tired. And so he sits by this well.
And verse 8 goes on to tell us in verse 8 that his disciples
had gone away into the city to buy food. So you get the picture. These guys have been traveling,
they're tired, they're hot, they're thirsty, they're dirty, they're
hungry, and they just want to rest, and they just want to be
replenished. Well, in the midst of all of that, God has sovereignly
ordained this encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well.
And so as the disciples are off in town buying food, Jesus interacts
with this woman. He loves her. He patiently allows
her to see the reality of her own sin. And she comes to faith
in Jesus Christ. And it's a wonderful thing that
transpires. But now let's move ahead to verse 31. And we see
what takes place. After all of this has happened,
the disciples have been gone, now they're coming back. And
in verse 31, we see what transpires. Because they've come back, and
it says in verse 31, in the meanwhile, the disciples were requesting
him, saying, Rabbi, eat. In other words, they know he's
hungry. They're concerned for his welfare at this point. And
so they're encouraging him. They've come back to say, man,
we've got food. There was a sale down at the local market. We've
got this great stuff. Oh, man, you need to eat. They didn't
really say it, obviously, but they're wanting him to eat. And
then it says in verse 32. Now, this is so interesting.
Just watch the disciples' misguided response to this. Verse 32, it
says that Jesus said to them, I have food to eat that you do
not know about. Now, at this point, the disciples
are thinking, verse 33, the disciples, therefore, were saying to one
another, no one brought him anything to eat, did he? In other words,
they're thinking, wait a second, Jesus, there's no food. Did somebody
bring you something to eat? Who? You know, I mean, they're
confused because he said, I have food to eat that you do not know
about. And listen to what he says in
verse 34. This is so insightful. He says, Jesus said to them,
my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish
his work. Whoa. Disciples, what are you
guys thinking about right now? Where's your mind right now?
Are you thinking about your own appetite and the desire to have
it fulfilled? Or are you thinking about eternity? Are you thinking
about the opportunities that God may be bringing across your
path even now? Or are you just more concerned
about what you're going to have for dinner, what you're going
to have for lunch? And Jesus says, my food, what feeds me,
what satisfies me is to do the will of Him who sent me. Now,
again, there's nothing wrong with eating real food. There's
nothing wrong with enjoying that real food. But there should be
a hunger in us that is far greater to do the will of God and to
be sensitive to every opportunity, every situation that God would
bring for us to be used by Him in the lives of other people.
And so it's a very clear danger that we need to be aware of,
that the lust of food would override our lust to taste God's approval
by doing His will and to be sensitive to that. There's a third lust
that we need to be aware of, and it really kind of embodies
everything. That is letter C, the lust of
pleasure, the lust of pleasure. And this goes beyond simply the
desire for having our physical appetites fed with food. This
relates to every aspect of our earthly physical bodies. It's really a lust for comfort
and pleasure, however we may seek to have that fulfilled.
And all of us know what we're talking about with respect to
that. All of us know what we're talking about. It's the lust
to be pleased, to be to feel good, to experience good things,
in whatever way, shape or form we may think that that's going
to be fulfilled. And Jesus says that that lust
is a dangerous lust because it will kill our appetite for God
and for His Word. You don't need to turn there,
but in Matthew chapter 13, As Jesus is talking about this parable
of the sower, where he's sharing with his disciples the significance
of what will happen when his word is proclaimed and how different
people will respond to his word. In verse 22 of Matthew 13, he
says, The one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is
the man who hears the word and the worry of the world and the
deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. If you and I give ourselves to
the pursuit of pleasure in this world, independent of God, it
will choke the power and the work of God's Word in our life.
And that's why oftentimes if you and I experience a lack of
hunger for God's Word and a lack of delighting in God's Word,
a lack of desire for God and His Word, we have to be willing
to stand back and say, you know, are there other things that I've
been giving myself to that are choking that hunger, that are
destroying that hunger, trying to find pleasure in things other
than God? In 1 John 2, verses 15 to 17, by the way, we're going
to actually begin our study of 1 John next Sunday morning. Lord
willing. So just so that you know that
that is coming up in 1st John, chapter two, verses 15 through
17. John says so plainly, do not
love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves
the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is
in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and
the boastful pride of life is not from the father, but is from
the world. The world is passing away and
also its lusts. But the one who does the will
of God abides forever. And folks, you and I are inundated
with this, aren't we? But it's important for us to
understand the world is not what's out there. The world's what's
in here. It's a question of our hearts. The world only influences us
to the extent that we let it. Because it's an issue of faith
and trust and walking with God and turning away from all those
things that we can see and trusting and believing really what we
can't see, but what God has revealed in His Word. It's a great passage
that helps us battle this lust in Psalm 16. And again, you don't
need to turn there. You're welcome to if you'd like.
But in Psalm 16, verse 11, The writer affirms as he's talking
to God, he says, you will make me know the path of life. He
says, in your presence is fullness of joy. And in your right hand,
there are pleasures forever. Affirming the fact that you know
what? There is no pleasure like the pleasure that God provides
when you walk with him. And frankly, there are aspects
of that which are physical, which we enjoy in this life, which
we can take fully as a gift from God. When you sit down, when
your heart's right with God, when you're walking with Him,
when you're seeking Him, when you're enjoying Him, you know
what? That's when you can only really enjoy the things that
He has provided in this life because you see them as from
His hand and as a gift of grace and mercy and goodness from Him.
Whether it's a beautiful day, or whether it's a wonderful meal
that you share, or whether it's a great time with a friend, or
whether it's the joy that a husband and a wife can share in marriage,
or whatever it may be, you can take those gifts from him and
enjoy them. But it's only in his presence
where there's fullness of joy. To try to experience all those
things apart from him is futile. It does not satisfy, and it does
not bring any real lasting joy. So the lust for pleasure is to
be replaced with a lust to know God's pleasure, knowing that
true and lasting joy is found only in His presence. And with
all that God prescribes for us as the great physician, isn't
it an awesome thing to know and to believe there's no bad side
effects? You know, with any kind of medication that you may take,
there could be any number of different side effects that you
may have to deal with. I was very amused, if you've
watched any of the Olympics, maybe you've seen some of these
ads, and I also saw this ad in a magazine for a medication called
Paxil. And it is proposed to provide
relief for what is identified as social anxiety disorder. another new disorder that's been
identified. And this ad, I don't know if
you can see it, there's a picture here. The first picture in the
ad has this picture and it says what it is, where there's just
a guy sitting around this table, apparently in an interview kind
of a situation, you know, looks under control, looks calm and
all of that. And these people are just, you know, they're interested,
but they're not intimidating or anything like that. So this
is what it is. And then the next picture says,
this is what it feels like. And it makes all these people
look like enemies. And the guy is bound up in ropes. I know
this isn't a great picture, But you know, this is social anxiety
disorder, where you get in the midst of people and you just... And I'm not discounting the fact
that that's a reality. I mean, we all wrestle, I think,
I sure do, with being afraid in situations that we're unfamiliar
with, or with people that we're unfamiliar with. But I'm here
to tell you the issue or the answer to that is not a medication.
It's God, right? And his word. And I was intrigued
by what is said about this medication, just to kind of give you an example
of the fact. It goes on to talk about, you
know, all of these things and, you know, how you can know whether
you deal with social anxiety disorder. And then after it lists
all these things that this medication is supposed to do, then it says,
as with many medications, there can be side effects. And it goes
on to list some of these. Side effects may include decreased
appetite, dry mouth, sweating, nausea, constipation, sexual
side effects in men and women, yawn, tremor, or sleepiness.
However, you won't be afraid in public anymore. And I just
think to myself, I think to myself, you know,
there's a risk with any medication you take, you know. I know how
this drug works. You get so consumed with all
these side effects, you don't have time to be afraid in public.
You know, you're just dealing with all of this stuff. It just
made me laugh. I don't know. I kind of saw the
humor in that. But you know what? With God, with what he prescribes,
with what he gives, there are no bad side effects. There is
nothing to fear, nothing to worry if you take him at his word and
believe what he has said and rely on him and savor his word. Well, that is the sixth commitment
then, a commitment to savor all of the great physician's medication. And we do that by replacing the
lust for all the things in the world, the lust of busyness,
the lust of food, the lust of pleasure, replacing that with
a lust for God himself. recognizing that in him is fullness
of joy, and in his right hand are pleasures forever. The sixth
commitment that is, the seventh commitment then, is this, and
that is a commitment to be involved with other patients in the treatment
process. A commitment to be involved with
other patients in the treatment process. And the simple, clear
key here is that God intends you and I to be involved with
other believers in the process of growth. It is one of the primary
means that God has provided. As His Word is the foundation,
He uses other believers to encourage us, to comfort us, to challenge
us, to rebuke us, to pray for us. We're to be involved with
one another in that process of growth. And there's a number
of passages I just want to mention. Proverbs 27 verse 17 says, as
iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. There's a sharpening
impact that we're to have with one another that is to be good,
that's to help us grow, help us to be sharper in our relationship
with God and in our service to Him. Ecclesiastes 4 verses 9
and 10 says that two are better than one because they have a
good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend
can help him up. But pity the man who falls and
has no one to help him up. And you and I need to be willing
to be connected with one another as believers to such an extent
that we help each other. We encourage each other. We all
go through all kinds of ups and downs in our relationship with
God, and times of joy, and times of sorrow, and times of confidence,
and times of doubting, and times of obedience, and times of sin,
and all these things. In all of that, we need to be
willing to be bonded together in the way that God has designed
us to, as brothers and sisters in Christ. There's a song that
was written a number of years ago. We really do need each other.
We do. in the fullest sense of the word.
And probably the clearest passage of scripture that identifies
this is over in Hebrews 10. And let me ask you to turn there,
Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, the writer says,
verses 24 and 25, and this is a command. This isn't a suggestion,
it's a command. He says, let us consider how
to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We're to have
such a nature of relationship that we're stimulating one another.
We're challenging, we're encouraging one another to love and good
deeds. He says in verse 25, not forsaking our own assembling
together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and
all the more as you see the day drawing near, referring to the
return of Jesus Christ. So there's a very clear command.
We're to stimulate one another. We're to not forsake meeting
together, he says, as is the habit of some. Now, it's very
interesting to me the whole context of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews
is written to people who are undergoing unbelievable persecution
for their faith. They're losing their homes. They're
losing their possessions. In some cases, they're losing
their life. And the whole reason that the writer is writing this
book is to encourage these people to not throw in the towel. And
in the midst of all of that, he says to them, don't quit getting
together. You need to stimulate one another.
You need to encourage one another and help each other. Now think
about this with me. When is it that you and I most
feel like not being together with other believers? You know,
when we most feel like not going to church, when we most feel
like not fellowshipping with other believers, usually we are
most greatly tempted that way when we're going through some
trial, when there's some hardship. Maybe there's even an issue of
sin that we're dealing with and that we're wrestling with. And
we think, I just can't. No, you know what? It's in the
midst of that that we most need that fellowship and that encouragement
and sometimes that admonition and that rebuke. We need that.
And to separate ourselves from that is to separate ourselves
from the very instrument that God has intended to use to help
you and I grow. We need one another. We need
that sense of fellowship. And it's more than simply coming
to church on Sunday morning. I mean, that's a big part of
it, without question. To be together with one another,
to worship God together. I mean, that's certainly a part
of it, but it's more than that. It's a heartbeat. It's a mindset
that wants to be with other believers, that recognizes that God is going
to use other believers in my life. Oftentimes there's blind
spots that I don't see that I need somebody to come up and lovingly
say, man, you are a real idiot. No, not to say that, but to say,
you know what, I see something in your life. It's not right.
It's not pleasing. And even though that hurts, you
and I need that. We desperately need that. And
again, if we're committed to growing, we've got to be committed
to being involved with other believers in the process of it.
We can't avoid what it is that God has established for us in
that. There's no lone range of Christians.
You've probably heard that said before. There's an illustration
you may be familiar with that C.H. Spurgeon, a famous preacher
back in the 1800s, had a man come to him who was wandering
from the flock. He was kind of off on his own
and he wasn't involved in worship. He wasn't involved in fellowship.
And this man came and wanted to receive some counsel from
C.H. Spurgeon. And the story is told that as
Spurgeon is talking to him, he has a fire going in his fireplace
there. in his home and as Spurgeon is
talking to him, Spurgeon takes the poker for the fire and just
kind of moves one of the coals away from the rest of where the
fire is taking place. And as they're talking, things
are going along and eventually You know, this man is basically
trying to communicate all of his excuses for not being in
fellowship. He's saying, you know, I can
do it my own. I'm reading my Bible. I'm doing this, doing that. Well,
as they're talking, Spurgeon draws his attention over to the
fire and he shows them this coal that has been separated. And
in the time that they have been talking, of course you know what
happens, the coal, what has happened? It's gone out. Why? Because it's
been separated from the rest of the fire. And there's an aspect
of spontaneous combustion that happens when wood gets together
and there's a fire. That's how fires happen. They
keep burning and they feed off of one another. And it's a great
picture of the need that we have as believers to be connected
with others. Because sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down,
sometimes we need the encouragement and the challenge that somebody
else is going to bring. Sometimes God is going to use us to provide
a source of encouragement or challenge for another person.
And we need to be committed to that. Given that truth, and I
hope you see that that is very clear from Scripture, I want
to talk about an opportunity by which we can do that in a
little bit more directed way. And men, if I can ask you to
go ahead and pass these little brochures out, and we'll talk
about this for just a couple minutes, and then we'll kind
of wrap things up. This is your handy-dandy, bright green, growing
together commitment brochure. And I'll wait for you to get
these and then we'll talk about this. And everybody gets one,
young and old. Everybody gets one of these. In the text, as these men are
passing these out, in Hebrews chapter 10, when the writer says,
not forsaking meeting together, The implication of the text there
is that if we don't give concentrated effort to cultivating that sense
of fellowship and that sense of being together with one another
in a way that allows us to stimulate one another to love and good
deeds, if we don't consciously try to make that happen, it's
not going to happen. Because the pressures of life,
the demand of all kinds of things are just going to force us to
kind of forsake that and just kind of walk away from that.
And so there needs to be on our part a conscious, deliberate,
intentional effort to seek out that kind of fellowship with
other believers that is going to be fruitful and effective.
Now, a way that we can do that, and this is just a way, there's
nothing biblical about this particular method in and of itself, it's
just a way to encourage us, is what are called commitment to
grow groups, or CTG groups for short. And let me just work through
this real quickly with you together to help you understand what this
is all about. What is a CTG group? Right on the inside here is where
I'm reading. What is a CTG group? CTG group is made up of two to
three people who all share a common commitment to grow in their relationship
with Jesus Christ. Members of each group are of
the same gender. I think it's important because
of the nature of things that are shared or can be shared in
that group. There needs to be a sensitivity to that. And they
meet weekly for shared encouragement and accountability in their spiritual
growth. It's recommended that each group not grow past three
members, but rather multiply into two groups of two once the
fourth participant has proven faithful to the process. So that's
the essence of what a group is. Now, the next thing here, why
should you be in a CTG group? God has designed us to be intimately
related to Him and to others who are part of His family through
faith in Jesus Christ. God works in a wonderful way
through other believers to encourage us, challenge us, correct us,
and comfort us as we grow in the faith. And then that passage
that we've looked at, Hebrews 10, which affirms that. Then the next question here is,
what goes on in a CTG group? Each CTG group meets weekly for
about an hour. The group determines the time
and place of the meeting. There's no curriculum, workbook, or training,
and leadership in the group is shared by all. Each meeting has
two primary elements, sharing and prayer. The time of sharing
is where participants seek to encourage each other by asking
the following questions of one another. These are the questions
that just kind of help guide this process. Question one, how
has your time in God's Word been this past week, and what specifically
has He been teaching you from His Word? And then there's a
little note there that group members are encouraged to set
goals with each other concerning regular Bible reading and Scripture
memory. We've talked about that in the past. There's a couple
of Bible reading plans available out there in the lobby, but that
really needs to be the foundation of the time. Second question,
what areas of temptation have you faced this week? Are there
any areas of sin that need to be confessed? Got to be a willingness
to be honest. Number three, in what ways have
you seen God answer prayer this past week? Number four, what
opportunities has God given you to share the love and truth of
Jesus Christ with other people, both believers and unbelievers,
this past week? Number five, what are some specific
ways that we can be praying for you? And number six, who are
some unbelievers that God has placed in your life that we can
be praying will come to salvation? And after a time of sharing,
then to have a time of prayer, where you can pray for each other
according to things that have been shared, as well as unbelievers
that participants have contact with who need salvation. And
that's really the focus of the group. And again, that's just
a guideline, but that's the idea that there's an intentional effort
to encourage one another and stimulate one another towards
love and good deeds and to growing and to staying on track with
what God has desired. Then the question, how do I get
involved in a CTG group? The best way to get involved
in a CTG group is to find one or two other believers, again
of the same gender, who have a desire and a commitment to
grow. And then you, and this is key,
don't wait for somebody to come to you. You take the initiative.
To initiate with them the idea of getting together on a weekly
basis with the above purposes in mind And most likely you'll
be able to identify one or two others with whom you are already
Developing a friendship if you have the desire to grow but you
can't think of anybody else to begin a group with Contact the
church office will help you get connected and we will and again
there is a built-in mechanism that God has designed for us
to grow and it's one another and with like-minded people who
are pursuing the same things. And on the back there, I just
put a little bullet list of people that should be in a CTG group,
and you can read that for yourself. And then I've also put a place
where you can just list the names and phone numbers of those people
that, Lord willing, you'll get involved in such a group with.
Now again, I want to encourage you, I want to challenge you,
and we're going to wrap it up here in just a couple minutes, okay?
Growth doesn't happen unless we purpose to make it happen. It just doesn't happen. Children
don't grow unless they eat. We don't grow spiritually unless
we make a concentrated effort to grow. And the seven different
commitments that we've gone through help us have maybe a sense of
what that effort involves, of trusting Him, of avoiding those
things that are junk food, of constantly asking Him for help,
of ordering our lives around Him, of doing this with other
people and doing what God prescribes. But I want to encourage you.
I believe if these kinds of groups will develop and we'll be committed
to that, we'll see God do marvelous things. Because we'll encourage
one another, we'll know one another better, we'll help one another.
And I want to encourage you to prayerfully consider taking the
initiative to do this. And we want to have some sense
of, you know, which groups are meeting and kind of who's meeting
with who, just from a sense of knowing and being able to encourage
that. But all of us who would name the name of Jesus Christ,
we need to be committed to this. Whether you're old, whether you're
young, whether you're a newer believer, whether you've been
a believer for a long time, we need to be committed to it and
respond to all that God is and all that God has called us to
in Jesus Christ. How many of you have ever eaten
at In-N-Out? I know I've asked this question
before, okay? Good food, right? In-N-Out to me is a classic example
of what it means to do the basics excellently. I mean, they have
a menu that is so simple, right? Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, french
fries, milkshakes, soda pop. That's it. You know, you can
get some variations of, you know, onions, no onions, pickles, you
know, I mean, you can get little variations, but they don't have
all these gobs of different, you know, mega death, super killer,
double, triple cheese, bacon deluxe, smeared on your face,
you know, they don't have all these different things. They
just have hamburgers, cheese, but you know what? They do what
they do excellently. And I've been told by a friend
of mine who visited their processing plant where they process all
of their meat that it's like a hospital operating room. It
is so clean and intense. To me, it's a principle of, you
know what? Stick with the basics and do them well. And in the
Christian life, the whole process is really basic. You know, God
has saved us. He's given us his truth. He's
given us his word. Take it, eat it, chew on it,
grow and do it with other believers. and allow God to work in you
and through you in a way that bears fruit, that you have an
impact on other people. The concept is simple. We have
to constantly return to that and do it so. Now, as we close
this morning, again, I apologize. I recognize we've gone a couple
minutes early. Oh, we've gone a couple minutes early. That'll
be the day. We've gone a couple minutes late. But what we're
gonna do is we're gonna sing a final song and I'm gonna, when
Smokey comes up, and Smokey, you can go ahead and come up.
You want to get ready to do that. I'm going to invite us all to
stand as we sing this song. And if you in your heart, wherever
you may be, if you in your heart would say, I want to be committed
to growing. You go ahead and stand now. That's okay. If it's
the desire of your heart to be committed to growing. whether
you have never seriously committed yourself to that process or whether
maybe you are in that process and you know that that's your
desire. If it's your desire to grow, what I'm going to invite
you to do as we sing is simply to come to the front. Alright,
and to put some feet to that commitment. And again, you may
never have seriously made that kind of a commitment to grow
in your relationship with Jesus Christ, or perhaps you have,
and perhaps, you know, sure you're not doing it perfectly, but you're
moving that direction, you should still come too, because this
is just an opportunity for all of us who would share that passion
and that commitment to just come together. So what we're going
to do is, as we sing, I'm going to invite you to come to the
front as we sing, and then when we're done singing, I'll go ahead
and dismiss the service, and then those that are here, we'll
just have a brief time just to pray together, and just to express
our desire for that commitment to the Lord. And if anybody needs
to leave prior to that, please feel free to. Nobody's going
to think less of you. And again, our desire is simply to just
be able to say, you know, I want to grow. I want to be committed
to that. So why don't we go ahead and sing and if that's the desire
of your heart then make your way to the front and we will
go on from there.
Growing in Christ, Part 7: The Commitments of Growth
Series Growing in Christ
| Sermon ID | 99124201948370 |
| Duration | 57:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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