Sermons
"Got To" to "Get To"
“GOT TO” TO “GET TO”
As we watch this short video, the little ones are excused for their class.
Although this video was short, it says a lot about how God sees all of us.
In God’s eye all of us are individually and collectively significant. Don’t ever say to yourself that you just don’t matter, that you think yourself insignificant. Remember, Jesus went to the cross for you. He is the definition of God’s love, care and concern for each one of us.
As we work through this morning’s lesson, the title, “GOT TO to GET TO”, will begin to make sense. All we ask is that all of us pay close attention so that we may come to an understanding of the title’s true meaning.
One of the goals of our church is that we would grow in number, not just so we can feel better about ourselves but because Jesus commanded us to grow. One of the last things Jesus commanded His disciples to do just before ascending back to heaven was, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”
However! If it’s just about moving people to church pews, there are a lot of easier ways to do that.
- We could offer free beer
- Lay out a major guilt trip; {Go to church or the devil will get you}
- We could hold our services next week at the “Q”
- Have a rock band perform
We all know something more has to happen if the connection is really going to last. God has to get a hold of the heart!
We could maybe get record numbers of people to church in a weekend, but they wouldn’t be here next week unless we did something equally spectacular again.
Some of the mega churches that were built on entertainment and making every Sunday a big production, are discovering that over time people get used to the extravaganza and it loses its effect. And some of those churches are noticing that people are leaving. Their house was built on sand!
In the Spring we make a special effort for Easter Sunday because we know people that don’t attend throughout the year will show up for that service. We do everything we can to have people have an encounter with the Lord. And that’s good that we do. However, as great as that particular service may be, how depressing is the next Sunday?
We start second guessing ourselves, “Was it something I said?” “Could we of done something better?”
People need to know up front that just saying you’re a Christian isn’t enough. Being a Christian takes commitment and spiritual discipline.
Spiritual discipline and commitment is a lifelong pursuit.
The hard truth is people fall away. How many of us know someone who was once dedicated to the Lord and His church and now have left Him.
All of us could admit that there have been times when we were close to falling away. Some of us have lost that fire we had when we came up out the waters of baptism. We go through times of spiritual stagnation.
There are major falling-aways, like when someone makes an intentional decision not to follow Jesus anymore.
Let me interject here that the parable of the prodigal son comes into play when this happens. It teaches us that we can come back to God. Jesus isn’t looking down from heaven shaking His head thinking, “Well, it’s about time!” or “Too late!” He is smiling and heaven is rejoicing: And the Lord’s open arms are saying “Welcome home!”
There are less noticeable “falling-aways”, or should we say, “drifting away.”
People wouldn’t know it by just looking at someone, but maybe their faith isn’t quite as strong as it once was. The passion isn’t as strong as it was before.
Don’t we all drift into that at times? We must come to the realization that this will happen to us, thus, we must be prepared beforehand to take corrective action. The worst time to formulate a plan for an emergency is when you need one!
All of us need to be not only aware that this could happen but understand the root cause.
The root cause is a lack of spiritual growth! Let’s face it – “If we are not growing we are dying or at best, stagnate.”
We can choose to just sit in a pew, “like I mentioned before, be a pew potato,” on Sunday morning and not take sermons that are designed to help in our spiritual growth to heart, not sing with joy in our hearts, have our minds far away from the prayers that are offered,
maybe think about the baseball game during the Lord’s supper. To do so will cause us to just slowly wither away. To die on the vine.
Or we can choose to grow spiritually.
Spiritual growth isn’t like taking a step after a step towards God. Let’s get real here! It’s more like 2 steps forward 1 step backwards. We have to train ourselves to be disciplined in our growth.
I hope some of us are connecting with this. I know I am.
Whether you are new to this whole Jesus/church thing, or if it’s your first time back in a long time, or even if your relationship with God isn’t what it once was. This morning we are talking about not only the need to but the how to actually grow in spiritual maturity.
Let’s ask ourselves, “Am I moving forward spiritually?” “Or am I stagnant?” “Or am I moving backwards?”
Maybe some of us have the feeling that God is somehow disappointed with us. Maybe some have doubts and think to themselves, “You did that again?” “You’re still struggling with that?” “I thought I was past this”
We must come to the realization that not one of us are perfect. We will slip up at times.
Here is a cool thing we see over and over again in the life of Jesus!
I borrowed this statement from someone else. I consider it profound and worthy of repeating:
“JESUS ALWAYS CALLED PEOPLE TO A HIGHER STANDARD, BUT HE NEVER CONDEMNED THEM WHEN THEY FELL SHORT!”
This got me thinking: Jesus is the ultimate encourager. He is always there for us when we need Him. In effect He is saying, “ Get back up. Let’s try again. I believe in you, and I know you can do better.”
That’s why in the New Testament we see people flocking to Him.
Those who felt the least worthy and the most rejected in this world felt the most loved and accepted by Jesus!
It’s really encouraging to know that the people that lived in Jesus’ day and have been written about, faced the same things we do.
We will be looking at a passage in Hebrews where it sounds like the whole church had faded away. God looks at us as individuals but also as a church.
The spiritual level of the church is important to God. That’s exactly why Brian and I understand that our most important objective as elders is the spiritual welfare and wellbeing of this flock. As does Terry.
We as a church will reproduce not just what we say, but what we do!
Thus our spiritual maturity is bigger than us…it impacts others.
What if we as the church doubled, and all the new people had the same passion for moving forward in spiritual maturity as we do. Think honestly about this, would that be a good or bad thing?
With that in mind, let’s check out the scripture for today.
READ Hebrews: 5:11-6:1
What’s the problem going on here we may ask.
The people are no longer even trying to understand! Remember these are Christians. He’s not saying they have given up on God; He is saying they have given up on moving forward into spiritual maturity. We learn from these few scriptures that we can be a Christian and give up on growing spiritually.
It is possible that anyone of us can be at church every Sunday and no longer be trying to grow closer to Jesus! We reach a comfort level and grow no further. And I suspect, and it’s not easy saying this, that this shoe fits some of us!
We learn from these verses that the people still needed to grasp the elemental truths!
Even though they had many “mature” believers among them, they still needed milk. They were still not ready for solid food.
The author of Hebrews is saying, “You should be off the bottle by now and on to solid food!”
He is saying to them and us, that they and us need to grow up spiritually! And in effect we are being warned to not stagnate but to continually move forward in our spiritual growth.
Let’s ask ourselves; Anytime that Terry through his sermons challenges us to step out of our comfort zone and reach closer to God, do we nod our heads and say to Terry, “great sermon”, but never apply the lessons to our lives?
Here is the natural way that we will react if we don’t make a concerted effort to grow.
If we are not intentional in growing in spiritual maturity, then over time, we will drift from God!
It’s like when pulling a boat up to the dock, if we don’t tie off to it, we will drift away from it.
The dock has moorings to tie off to. We tie off to God’s word. That’s what keeps us secured to Him. It’s God’s word that holds us against the currents that will cause us to drift.
We have to be diligent in our spiritual growth. We have to be intentional in growing forward and upward in our faith.
It’s not always that people walk away intentionally or purposefully from God, some just get complacent…to the point where, like the author of Hebrews says, “You are not even acquainted with righteousness.”
Some may be asking themselves, “How did I get here?” “How did I drift so far from God?”
Story - (Old man sleeping in the boat)
I pray that none of us fall asleep concerning our spiritual growth and drift away from the Lord!
The author of Hebrews gives us some answers to aid our walk with the Lord that are of the utmost importance for us personally and as a church.
We should know and understand that God wants us to grow in spiritual maturity!
Heb. 6:1 – “Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be ‘taken forward to maturity,’ not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God…”
I hope this lesson is at least getting us to consider our walk with the Lord.
Let me ask. How many want to mature in their walk with the Lord? {Ask for a show of hands} I pray we all do! And if any don’t, you have some soul searching to do.
You may be thinking, “How mature does God want me to be? How far should I grow? Is there a limit to spiritual growth?
God may give us the same answer as what we want for ourselves and our kids ,,,,,”More”
If we ever think to ourselves that we have reached a point where we know enough or that we know it all, we will be losing even greater insight into what God has done and is doing for us.
With this type of mindset, we will be not only cheating ourselves of spiritual growth, we will be missing out on so much of the life that God wants for us!
Don’t ever sell yourself short by saying to yourself, “I am comfortable where I am spiritually!”
How do we grow? – Stop trying and start training!
Heb. 5:14 – “But solid food is for the mature, who by contrast have {now get this} trained themselves to distinguish good from evil”
This passage says, “trained themselves”, They were responsible for training themselves.
Let’s clarify here that when it comes to salvation, it is completely God’s work, but when it comes to growing in faith, we do play a roll.
Here is a point worthy of note concerning spiritual growth:
There is an immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something!
Training is required for any significant challenge in our lives. While it may be difficult, training always leads to joy and greater fulfillment.
I learned that when I took up archery, and golf. One of my goals for next year is to ride my bike along the Greenway trail from Champion to Lake Erie. But I know I’ll have to train first. Otherwise I’ll never make it.
It’s also true when we consider spiritual growth.
Here is what the Bible says about spiritual maturity and training:
1 Cor. 9:25 – “ Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”
1 Tim. 4:7-8 – “Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales; rather, train yourself to be Godly. For physical training is of some value, but Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”
2 Tim. 3:16-17 – “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
Spiritual training requires Spiritual discipline.
For example; disciplines like reading the Bible and prayer enable God to bring out in us the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control.
Someone put it this way; “A disciplined person is not someone who exercises a lot of discipline. “A DISCIPLINED PERSON IS SOMEONE WHO CAN DO THE RIGHT THING AT THE RIGHT TIME AND IN THE RIGHT WAY WITH THE RIGHT SPIRIT.”
Jack Nickales the pro golfer was good because he remained disciplined in his training. He was interviewed soon after hip replacement surgery. Asked how his recovery was going he replied that he was starting his training easy, only hitting 750 golf balls a day!
Spiritually speaking, the goal is not to calculate how many verses we read or how much time we pray, but to use the Bible and prayer as opportunities for God to speak to us and to grow us up!
Here are a couple of methods for training:
- Decide that you are going to train – We can’t drift into spiritual training, we must decide to train. We must make a commitment.
- Get a workout plan: - set some goals – you do that by looking inward and admitting that you need some areas of your spiritual life worked on.
- Spend more time with your Bible and prayer - The Bible is the primary way that God speaks to us and prayer is the primary way we speak to God.
- Get a few close Christian friends that you can confide in: - Christianity was never meant to be just an individual thing.
- And lastly, and most importantly, TAKE THE FIRAT STEP!
In conclusion:
The good news is that faith is contagious, and when we take a step in faith, it always grows more faith in us.It’s why Jesus says faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.When we take a step in faith, it doesn’t stay the size of a mustard seed very long.
Our challenge today is that all of us take a step in faith even before leaving here this morning.
Which brings us back to this morning’s sermon title:
MOVE FROM “GOT TO to “GET TO”
Our ultimate inspiration has to be Jesus.It has to start with HIM.
It’s not all about moving towards an arbitrary line of spiritual maturity; it’s about moving towards a person. Towards Jesus!
He left a throne in heaven in exchange for a cross on Calvary to make it possible for us to get close to Him.When we really start to get this, then our spiritual growth moves from something we “got to” do to something we “get to” do! That changes everything!
We need an attitude adjustment from time to time.
And here it is.
Allow God to move our pursuit of Him from something we got to do to something, because of Him, we get to do!
Prayer: Our Father, we are awed and amazed that through Your love for us and Your concern for our eternal welfare that You have given us a way to become Your children.To be forgiven of sins against You. That You have laid a path before us that gives us a way that we get to follow.We pray for strength to grow in our walk with You.Instill in us a desire to continually grow ever closer to You. Amen!
Brian is about to lead us in a song of invitation;This is an opportunity for anyone needing pray to step forward.Perhaps you are wrestling with accepting the Lord as your savior this morning.
Take that first step in faith that you know in your heart you “got to” make.Because of the work of Jesus and His death on the cross and the fact that He rose from the dead, all this He did for you.He prepared the way for you. Because of what He did, you “get to” make things right between you and the Lord.
