7 Practices That Lead to Growth

Kyle explores the seven proven practices that can help you grow spiritually this year.

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    Well, hey. How are you? Good to see everybody.
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    Happy Black History Month.
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    It's February already. Hard to believe.
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    My name is Kyle, if we've never met before.
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    I am what's called a Lead pastor here at Crossroads.
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    Brand new thing.
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    If you hear that and you're like, "What does that mean?
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    What happened to Brian?" Relax.
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    He is still the Senior Pastor. He's my boss.
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    Lead Pastor just means I lead the stuff that he asked me to.
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    Senior Pastor means that he gets a discount
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    at Cracker Barrel for being very, very old.
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    That's what it means.
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    I'm going to crush him next week
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    in the Super Bowl of Preaching. That's what it also means.
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    In case you're wondering,
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    we're not competitive here or anything.
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    Okay. Now, we are also, if you're just joining us,
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    we are wrapping up this series on the book of Nehemiah.
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    This is the last week of the series,
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    and I'll just kind of give you the quick catch up,
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    okay, if you've missed missed something.
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    Nehemiah begins when a wall goes down
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    in the year 586 BC, the Babylonians
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    roll into Jerusalem and they attack.
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    They crush all the walls, burn all the gates,
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    and haul all the people off to be slaves in Babylon.
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    146 years after that, this one guy, Nehemiah,
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    who was one of those exiles in Babylon,
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    goes to the king and says, "Hey, uh, I was thinking,
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    what if you let me go rebuild the wall?"
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    And the King was like, "Yeah, that sounds great."
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    So fast forward, Nehemiah does it. It's awesome.
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    Lots of leadership lessons flow.
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    You should go back and watch it all in the Crossroads App.
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    It's spectacular.
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    However, today we're not talking about the wall
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    because it turns out that Nehemiah has 13 books. Okay?
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    And the first six books are about the building of the wall.
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    But starting in the 7th chapter, there's no more wall.
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    It's crazy. Literally only 40% or so
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    of the book of Nehemiah is about a wall,
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    which, if you were watching a movie, right,
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    and the main character was there
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    and they were kind of the feature
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    of the first part of the movie, and then
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    they were just gone and they didn't show up again.
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    What would your conclusion be?
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    Probably that they weren't actually the main character.
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    Well, that's actually what the wall is in Nehemiah.
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    So the surprise, we save for the end of the series,
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    the book of Nehemiah isn't about a wall at all.
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    So what is it about? What is it about?
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    Well, to answer that question,
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    we have to go back and ask the question
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    of why was the wall down in the first place?
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    You might be like, "Kyle, you just told us that.
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    The Babylonians came in and crushed it all, that's why."
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    Yeah. Okay, but let me ask you a question.
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    These were God's chosen people,
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    the God of the universe who forms mountains out of dust,
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    who spoke everything into existence,
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    who had protected them countless times
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    from other enemies when they never had a wall,
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    when they lived in tents.
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    He could have stopped the Babylonians, but He didn't.
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    So? So why?
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    Turns out, the answer to that question
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    is in the book of Isaiah, a prophecy written
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    about 100 years before those walls fell.
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    It says this, God describes His people as a vineyard. He says:
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    This is God talking.
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    See, the reason the wall was down
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    wasn't because the Babylonians came along.
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    The reason the wall was down was because
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    God expected his people to produce and to grow fruit,
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    to be constantly growing, constantly producing.
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    And they didn't. So the wall came down.
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    See, Nehemiah is not a book about a wall.
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    It's a book about a garden God wanted to grow inside it.
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    That's what it's about.
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    Now later in the book of Isaiah -- sorry, in Nehemiah,
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    they make this change. Right?
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    The wall happens and then the wall is gone.
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    But something new begins, which is
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    they start to discover the Word of God.
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    They pull it back out. Ezra the scribe takes over,
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    he starts reading it to the people.
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    There's this scene where they gather inside the wall,
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    this garden, this vineyard of God.
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    And this is what it says, Nehemiah chapter eight:
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    This is the moment of why God wanted to return,
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    why He wanted a wall built so the people
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    could come back inside and they could
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    become re-rooted in the Word of God
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    and begin to grow the way that He wants them.
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    This is what God wants, as it turns out, from all of us.
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    He wants us to grow.
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    There's an invitation to grow throughout
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    the book of Nehemiah and far, far beyond.
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    See, I think there's a thing we want to get today:
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    growth may be more important to God than it is to you.
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    We want to fix that today. So would you pray with me?
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    God, thank you for the story of Nehemiah.
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    Thank you for everyone who's here,
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    everyone who's watching online.
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    Would You help me be clear and say exactly what You want?
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    Lord, help us all grow closer to You. Amen.
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    Okay, it's been a minute since I've been up here,
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    by the way, and done a teaching, I think, since September.
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    And some stuff has happened in my life.
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    I just want to keep you updated on,
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    one terrible thing in particular,
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    that is that my sweet, precious baby daughter
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    has joined a cult.
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    Um, not what I wanted, you know,
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    sort of asking lots of questions, internal questions.
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    You know, how could I would I have done differently,
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    and all those sorts of things.
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    And my conclusion is nothing.
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    Because, see, in a marriage,
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    you don't want to ever point a finger, right?
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    You don't want to say like, it's your fault or whatever.
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    That's never good.
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    But I do want to just point out
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    that this is entirely Sarah's fault.
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    It is not mine.
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    Um, she introduced our daughter to the leader of this cult,
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    started singing along to all of the ideology
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    and all all the stuff.
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    And now I have a daughter who believes
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    in the theology of Bad Blood,
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    the doctrine of the Blank Space. You know?
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    She's like, what does that even mean? So, meta.
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    And then and then this, like, prophecy
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    of a messiah like character called the Anti-Hero.
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    Have you ever heard of this? It's crazy.
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    She's a Swiftie. Check this out.
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    Can I ask you a question? - Sure.
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    - Who is your favorite singer?
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    - Probably Taylor Swift.
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    - What's your favorite song? - Blank Space.
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    - What's it about?
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    - Um, it's about blank space, I think. I don't know.
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    - You don't know?
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    - I think it's about blank space.
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    I mean, that's the name.
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    - I love that. She sings along to the songs.
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    She's no idea what they mean at all.
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    You've ever been in a moment in your life where that's happened?
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    Maybe at work, someone's talking about something.
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    "Oh, the synergistic relationship between the..."
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    You're like, "Yeah, that sounds --
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    I don't know what you're talking about."
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    She's not alone. It happens a lot at church.
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    Come to churches ad we like to use code words
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    and phrases that don't actually make any sense.
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    We'll talk about your spiritual journey.
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    And if you're new, you're like, "What does that mean?
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    Do we get a spiritual backpack?
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    Do we eat spiritual snacks along the way?
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    Sounds cool, right?"
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    Or walk with God, you know, I've heard that one.
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    It's like, "Walk with God. That's awesome.
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    Like, are we walking dogs? Are we going hiking?
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    You know, should I bring I bring some snacks?
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    How does this work?" We use these phrases.
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    I think growth is one of those types of phrases
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    or words, I think you can hear and nod your head along
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    and even go like, "Yeah, no, I get what that's about,"
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    and not actually understand it.
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    This is certainly been me. Certainly been me.
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    Now, growth is important.
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    I want to make that very clear.
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    As a church, we love growth. We believe in growth.
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    It's actually in our mission statement.
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    I don't know if you knew this.
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    Our mission statement is connecting seekers,
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    those are people who don't yet believe in Jesus,
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    to a community of growing Christ-followers
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    who are changing the world.
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    Growing is the heart of our mission statement.
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    We've actually spent a lot of time trying
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    to figure out how to help us all to grow.
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    We even invented a method of growth
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    called the Seven Proven Practices.
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    And if you've been here for any length of time
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    of 12 months or so, you would have heard us
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    talk about the seven practices.
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    Maybe a community pastor stood on stage
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    or in a video and said, "We've got these seven practices
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    there to help you grow,
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    and maybe you want to check one out."
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    You've heard this, right? Very, very important.
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    By the way, the seven practices
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    are up there on the screen if you're curious.
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    I'm not going to give you a rundown of them,
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    but I will by the end of the service, though,
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    point you to where you can find out more.
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    They are actually proven, by the way.
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    We did research on them to figure out
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    what are the characteristics, what are the behaviors
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    that add up to somebody actually growing spiritually.
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    What does that look like?
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    We determined that these are the seven.
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    We also found that growth really starts to kick in
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    when you're doing four or more of the practices.
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    That's not all we found out.
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    We did more research and we discovered that
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    as a church, most of us are doing three or less,
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    which means we have a problem.
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    The problem is that most of us aren't growing
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    like we could be, and therefore we're missing out
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    on the life that God has for us.
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    Now, the reason for that, I don't think
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    is because we're bad, we're lazy, you know?
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    I think it's because we're like Gracie
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    and we're just singing along with a word
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    that we don't actually understand
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    the fullness and the richness of.
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    But God has a radically different view of this idea
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    of growth, what it is and and why it is
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    that I want to root us in today.
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    And to do that, I'm going to give you a lot of Bible,
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    okay, a whole lot of Bible, so much Bible.
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    But I think that you can handle it.
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    Now to help you with the amount of Bible
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    I'm about to give you, we're going to play a game,
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    okay, as I give you the Bible.
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    It's probably what you're thinking, a drinking game.
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    How about that? First one I think in the history
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    of this church that I know of anyway, drinking games.
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    Some of you are like, "This is awesome.
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    My mom said I wasted my time in college.
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    Turns out I'm primed, about to crush it, right?"
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    Others of you like, "A drinking game in church?"
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    Relax, with whatever's in your cup, your water,
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    your coffee, your juice, whatever,
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    dude in the back row, I'm not going to ask what you have.
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    It's fine. It's fine. Drinking game. Okay.
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    Now it's going to work like this,
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    when I read from the Bible the word fruit,
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    you're going to take a drink of whatever you have, okay?
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    Not yet. That wasn't the Bible, that was just me.
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    That was just me.
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    When I read from the Bible you're going to drink
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    when I say the word fruit.
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    The reason is because God says the goal of growth
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    is not more knowledge, it's not better theology,
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    it's not to become a nicer, kinder, more godly person.
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    I think God's fine with all those things.
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    I think He actually likes them.
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    But the goal, the goal of growth is
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    that you would bear much fruit.
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    This idea is so thorough in the Bible.
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    I was researching and working on this message,
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    it was mind blowing to me how often God brings this up.
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    In fact, what I'm going to share with you
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    is literally 3% of the times it comes up in the Bible.
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    We're not even going to get to the 97%.
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    That's how big of an idea this is. Okay, so ready?
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    Get your cup in hand. You're ready.
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    Or an imaginary cup, that's also fine.
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    Get it ready. Here we go.
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    Do you know the first living thing that God ever made?
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    Genesis 1:11, Then God said that
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    the land produced vegetation, seed bearing plants
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    and trees in the land that bear fruit. [ding]
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    There you go. Even a little sound effect to help you.
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    How about that? With seed it according to the various kinds.
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    Do you know the first two words that God ever spoke to humanity?
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    Genesis 1:28, God blessed them and said to them,
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    "Be fruitful [ding] and increase in number," perfect.
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    The blessing that God gave after the Flood,
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    which is kind of like God's redo on the start of humanity.
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    Genesis 9:1, Then God blessed Noah and his sons,
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    saying to them, 'Be fruitful [ding] and increase in number
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    and fill the earth."
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    What about the covenant that God made with Abraham?
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    This is a massive moment in the history of the people of God.
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    He grabs this guy Abraham, and he changes his name,
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    and he kind of gives him this massive promises
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    and this commission of what he was going to do.
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    And he says this to him, Genesis 17,
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    No longer will you be called Abraham,
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    your name will be Abraham,
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    for I have made you a father of many nations.
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    I will make you very fruitful. [ding]
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    When Isaac blesses Jacob, Genesis 28,
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    May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful, [ding]
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    and increase your numbers
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    until you become a community of peoples.
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    When God changed Jacob's name to Israel, Genesis 35,
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    God said to him, your name's Jacob,
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    no longer be called Jacob, so he named him Israel.
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    God said to him, "I am God Almighty.
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    Be fruitful [ding] and increase in number.
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    The main sign that Moses was looking for,
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    he sent the spies across the Jordan River
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    to spy out the Promised Land.
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    What did he want to know? Whether it had fruit in it.
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    This is Numbers 13, There they reported to them
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    and to the whole assembly
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    and showed them the fruit [ding] of the land.
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    They gave Moses this account.
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    We went into the land to which you sent us,
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    and it does flow with milk and honey.
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    Here is its fruit. [ding]
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    Perfect. You guys are doing so great.
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    How about the opening of Psalms,
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    the book of prayer and authenticity.
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    Just one of the most, richest, just deepest,
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    craziest parts of the whole Bible.
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    Do you know that the very first chapter
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    of all of Psalms starts with the idea of fruit?
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    It says this: blessed is the one
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    who does not walk in step with the wicked,
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    or stand in the way that sinners take
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    or sit in the company of mockers,
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    but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
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    who meditates on His law day and night.
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    This person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
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    which yields its fruit [ding] in season,
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    and whose leaf does not wither.
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    Now, I'm not going to read you the major prophets.
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    There's five of them, by the way.
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    There's Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations,
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    which is written by Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.
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    I'll just say that all five prophets
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    also mention the word fruit.
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    And so I'm going to quote each of them, ready?
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    Fruit bing, [ding] and drink. Yeah. There you go.
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    Fruit, [ding] fruit, [ding] fruit, [ding] fruit [ding].
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    We saved so much time there. That was great.
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    We're really making awesome progress. I just love this.
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    You guys are incredible.
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    Okay, Jesus's final major teaching, almost done.
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    Jesus' final major teaching.
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    This is a big moment, right?
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    He's done all kinds of different teachings.
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    He's gone all over the place. He's taught so many people.
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    This is his last one before He's going to go
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    to the cross and get crucified.
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    It's really important. What does he talk about?
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    John 15 Jesus says, "I am the vine
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    and my father is the gardener.
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    He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, [ding]
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    while every branch that does bear fruit [ding]
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    He prunes that it will be even more fruitful. [ding]
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    You are already clean because the word I've spoken to you.
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    Remain in Me, as I also remain in you.
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    No branch can bear fruit by itself.
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    It must remain in the vine.
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    Neither can you bear fruit [ding] unless you remain in Me.
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    I'm the vine, you're the branches.
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    If you remain in Me and I in you,
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    you will bear much fruit. [ding] This is crazy.
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    Apart from me, you can do nothing.
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    This is to My Father's glory that you bear much fruit. [ding]
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    Showing goodness to be my disciples, John 15:16,
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    you didn't choose <e, but I chose you
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    and appointed you that you might go and bear fruit. [ding]
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    Fruit that will last. Come on, ding.
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    That was a double fruit. Where did it go?
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    [ding] There it is. Okay. Perfect.
  • 00:15:45
    You get the idea, right?
  • 00:15:46
    Fruit is a big deal to God.
  • 00:15:48
    There's a goal for your life,
  • 00:15:50
    this is what I want you to hear.
  • 00:15:52
    And you can put your cups down. We're cool. Okay.
  • 00:15:54
    If you want to keep going, I mean,
  • 00:15:55
    there's going to be more words of fruit.
  • 00:15:57
    You can keep going if you want to.
  • 00:15:58
    That was the end of the official game. Okay.
  • 00:16:00
    The point is this: God has a vision for your life.
  • 00:16:04
    And my question is, do you have the same one?
  • 00:16:06
    His vision is that you bear fruit.
  • 00:16:09
    Now, fruit isn't just like nice,
  • 00:16:11
    you know, positive vibes.
  • 00:16:13
    I'm just sending lovey vibes out into the world, you know?
  • 00:16:16
    No, it's not that.
  • 00:16:18
    Fruit is people who know and love God because of you,
  • 00:16:22
    because of your investment in them,
  • 00:16:25
    because of how you love them,
  • 00:16:26
    because of how you showed them Jesus.
  • 00:16:28
    That's the fruit that He wants from you now.
  • 00:16:32
    Not just a little, by the way.
  • 00:16:34
    Did you hear the word much in there?
  • 00:16:36
    Good question might be how much, Jesus?
  • 00:16:39
    You said much. That's a little bit vague. You know?
  • 00:16:41
    Much can mean different things to different people.
  • 00:16:43
    I take my kids to Chick-fil-A, they love Chick-fil-A.
  • 00:16:46
    It's a great place. I love Chick-fil-A.
  • 00:16:48
    We are a family of five, okay,
  • 00:16:49
    so we roll up in our minivan to the drive through.
  • 00:16:51
    This is the scene that plays out every time.
  • 00:16:53
    I order $75 worth of chicken shrapnel.
  • 00:16:58
    Just whatever parts you want. I'll take it.
  • 00:17:01
    Just deep fry it. Right?
  • 00:17:02
    Throw some waffle fries on the side.
  • 00:17:05
    Order it, and then at the end of the order,
  • 00:17:07
    they always say, "Would you like any dipping sauce?"
  • 00:17:09
    And I say, "Yes." And they say, "What kind?"
  • 00:17:12
    And I say, "Ranch." And they say, "How much?"
  • 00:17:15
    And I say, "Much, much much, like a whole lot, you know?"
  • 00:17:20
    In my mind that would mean, like, I don't know,
  • 00:17:22
    a dozen packs of -- there's so much chicken and five of us.
  • 00:17:26
    This is what happens every time
  • 00:17:27
    we go to the drive thru. They hand us the bag.
  • 00:17:29
    We say thank you. They say, "My pleasure." Perfect.
  • 00:17:34
    I open the bag and inside are two ranches.
  • 00:17:40
    It's not much to me, you know?
  • 00:17:43
    We've got different definitions.
  • 00:17:46
    So what does much mean to God?
  • 00:17:49
    What's His version of much?
  • 00:17:50
    Is there a place in the Bible where maybe
  • 00:17:53
    Jesus connects the idea of fruit to the idea of much?
  • 00:17:57
    It turns out that there is, actually.
  • 00:17:59
    Matthew 13:23 says:
  • 00:18:14
    Okay, there's math in the Bible. Did you know that?
  • 00:18:16
    I don't if you knew that. There's math in the Bible.
  • 00:18:18
    I'm not going to tell my 13 year old. He hates math.
  • 00:18:20
    This would not be good for his spiritual growth.
  • 00:18:22
    But I'll tell you, there is math in the Bible.
  • 00:18:25
    Much to God seems to be a range between 30 acts
  • 00:18:29
    and 100 acts, anywhere in there He's cool with,
  • 00:18:33
    you know, 30 to 100.
  • 00:18:35
    You know, we can do math.
  • 00:18:36
    I don't know if you knew this as a church.
  • 00:18:38
    We have about 40,000 people,
  • 00:18:40
    unique people who engage with us every month.
  • 00:18:43
    40,000 people.
  • 00:18:45
    Do you know what 40,000 times 30 is? It's 1.2 million.
  • 00:18:52
    Do you know what 40,000 times 60 is? 2.4 million.
  • 00:18:58
    Do you know what 40,000 times 100 is? 4 million people.
  • 00:19:04
    That's in one generation.
  • 00:19:06
    There's other translations of this verse
  • 00:19:07
    that make it very clear that He's talking to some one,
  • 00:19:10
    one person, one generation.
  • 00:19:13
    If you do the Bible math, it would be reasonable
  • 00:19:17
    to conclude that what God wants from a church like us
  • 00:19:21
    is for that kind of range in one generation.
  • 00:19:25
    That's crazy. It might seem nuts to you.
  • 00:19:29
    Brian has been doing research on awakenings.
  • 00:19:31
    I'm sure he's talked about that a little bit from stage,
  • 00:19:33
    and you'll hear a lot more about it.
  • 00:19:35
    It's really been on his heart.
  • 00:19:36
    What is an awakening?
  • 00:19:37
    Well, an awakening is when
  • 00:19:39
    so many more people than usual
  • 00:19:41
    all come to God in one generation,
  • 00:19:43
    like 30 times, 60 times or 100 times more than usual.
  • 00:19:47
    And he's been researching, like, how do they happen
  • 00:19:49
    and and why do they happen and all this stuff.
  • 00:19:52
    And my assumption before he did this research
  • 00:19:54
    was like, God just sort of like spontaneously
  • 00:19:56
    did something and everyone was just there
  • 00:19:57
    and they're like, "Wow, we had no idea. This is crazy."
  • 00:20:01
    It's not how it works, not how it works.
  • 00:20:04
    It works when a group of people get a vision for it.
  • 00:20:07
    And they work for it and they pray for it
  • 00:20:09
    and they try for it, doesn't guarantee it's going to happen.
  • 00:20:12
    Doesn't guarantee that, but that's when it does happen.
  • 00:20:17
    Now, that might seem kind of crazy.
  • 00:20:18
    You know, I know, um, a lot of believers,
  • 00:20:22
    a lot of Christians can feel like big numbers are bad.
  • 00:20:24
    You know, I hear that a lot about Crossroads.
  • 00:20:26
    Some people where I work and it's like,
  • 00:20:28
    "Oh, man, it's so big. You know, it's kind of weird."
  • 00:20:31
    I'm like, "Well, it is big. Um,
  • 00:20:33
    I'm not sure why that means that it's weird or bad,
  • 00:20:36
    because that seems to be what you're --
  • 00:20:37
    What you're indicating. You know? It's bad, but I get it."
  • 00:20:40
    And by the way, if you feel that way right now,
  • 00:20:42
    if you're like, it is pretty big.
  • 00:20:43
    I'm like, no judgment, it's totally fine, I get it.
  • 00:20:46
    I remember back, um, I don't know, 2007, 2008,
  • 00:20:50
    we were talking about starting something called multi-site.
  • 00:20:52
    At that point, we were just one church, one location,
  • 00:20:54
    and we were going to add a site in Mason.
  • 00:20:56
    And I thought this was a bad idea.
  • 00:21:00
    Not because I didn't think it would work.
  • 00:21:02
    I just thought like, man, how arrogant of us
  • 00:21:06
    that we would think the world would need
  • 00:21:08
    more Crossroads churches. Uck.
  • 00:21:10
    That's just -- that's just crazy, right?
  • 00:21:13
    That's so prideful.
  • 00:21:14
    Humility. Humility would be to be reasonable.
  • 00:21:18
    Just work here. Try to grow this thing a little bit.
  • 00:21:21
    Right? That's that's reasonable.
  • 00:21:23
    Well, if you read the Bible, spoiler alert,
  • 00:21:26
    God doesn't seem to recruit reasonable people.
  • 00:21:30
    He doesn't train people to be reasonable.
  • 00:21:34
    He recruits unreasonable people and trains them
  • 00:21:37
    to have a child-like faith that what He says can happen.
  • 00:21:40
    Like Ephesians says that abundantly more
  • 00:21:42
    than they can think or imagine can happen through God.
  • 00:21:45
    That's what He's looking for. That's His idea of much.
  • 00:21:48
    I just think about what would have happened if we had stopped.
  • 00:21:51
    That 40,000 would be significantly less because
  • 00:21:54
    like 80% of that number is outside our original site.
  • 00:21:57
    That would, I mean, just think about that
  • 00:21:59
    if in my pride, which that's what it's called
  • 00:22:03
    when you don't agree with God, humility is,
  • 00:22:06
    "God, that's crazy.
  • 00:22:07
    I don't know how that's going to happen.
  • 00:22:09
    I don't understand it.
  • 00:22:10
    But I will just humbly submit under You
  • 00:22:12
    and try to follow You." That's humility.
  • 00:22:16
    Just, man, I can't even imagine.
  • 00:22:18
    Thank goodness that we didn't listen to me.
  • 00:22:21
    Thank goodness, you know?
  • 00:22:23
    Now, the stakes are high on this.
  • 00:22:25
    I need to make this point, bearing fruit
  • 00:22:27
    is not a hobby, it's not like a side project.
  • 00:22:29
    God's like, Hey, by the way, you know,
  • 00:22:31
    can you just kind of, like, like a side of fries?
  • 00:22:33
    Like a side of fruit on your life? That'd be cool.
  • 00:22:35
    Do whatever you want, just a little,
  • 00:22:36
    little cup of cup of fruit on the side. Cool."
  • 00:22:39
    No, it's not a hobby because the stakes are severe for this.
  • 00:22:44
    I read this in that John 15 section.
  • 00:22:47
    I want to read it again.
  • 00:22:48
    Jesus says to His disciples,
  • 00:22:50
    by the way, this is important.
  • 00:22:51
    That whole section, John 15 about the vine
  • 00:22:54
    and the branches and bear much fruit from Jesus,
  • 00:22:56
    that very last teaching, do you know where it took place?
  • 00:23:00
    This is on the roof of something
  • 00:23:03
    that's known as the Upper Room.
  • 00:23:04
    The Upper Room is where Jesus gave the Last Supper,
  • 00:23:09
    gathers His disciples together and does this thing.
  • 00:23:11
    He takes some some bread, He takes some wine,
  • 00:23:13
    and He blesses them. He breaks the bread.
  • 00:23:15
    He passes out the wine, says, "This is my body.
  • 00:23:17
    This is My blood shed for you."
  • 00:23:18
    It's the thing that we still do to this day.
  • 00:23:20
    Well, that all happened in the Upper Room.
  • 00:23:23
    But then after dinner, they arise to the Upper Room.
  • 00:23:26
    They go on top of the building where there
  • 00:23:29
    would have been something just like this.
  • 00:23:31
    This is a trellis and a vine.
  • 00:23:34
    And essentially before air conditioning
  • 00:23:36
    in the Middle East, if you wanted to be outside
  • 00:23:38
    and enjoy the breeze, you needed shade.
  • 00:23:41
    And so not uncommon, houses would have a trellis
  • 00:23:45
    and a little vineyard on top of the roof just to provide shade.
  • 00:23:48
    You can imagine the sun setting,
  • 00:23:49
    and this would help block some of sun,
  • 00:23:51
    and there'd probably be overhead beams
  • 00:23:53
    with it coming down too to block the sun overhead.
  • 00:23:56
    And so they're up there and Jesusis teaching,
  • 00:23:58
    as He's pointing at the vine in the trellis.
  • 00:24:02
    He says this, John 15:2:
  • 00:24:13
    He says God's like a gardener.
  • 00:24:15
    He goes inside the wall. He goes to His garden.
  • 00:24:17
    He's like a gardener and if He sees
  • 00:24:19
    a branch that doesn't have fruit, He just cuts it off.
  • 00:24:22
    Now, what does that mean?
  • 00:24:23
    Does it mean that you can lose your salvation?
  • 00:24:25
    This is a big one that I always get as a pastor,
  • 00:24:27
    can you lose your salvation?
  • 00:24:29
    Uh, personal opinion, I don't think so,
  • 00:24:31
    because the opposite of that would be
  • 00:24:33
    the way to keep your salvation is to do good works.
  • 00:24:36
    And we don't have a works based religion.
  • 00:24:38
    We have a grace based religion.
  • 00:24:40
    That's what Jesus's thing is.
  • 00:24:42
    It doesn't matter what you do,
  • 00:24:43
    you can't earn your way into heaven
  • 00:24:44
    and you can't mistake your way out of it either.
  • 00:24:47
    What does it mean to be cut off then?
  • 00:24:48
    It means that you miss out on
  • 00:24:50
    the abundant life that Jesus promised.
  • 00:24:53
    John 10 Jesus said:
  • 00:25:01
    Abundant what? Fruit, fruit. You get to enjoy it.
  • 00:25:05
    See, when you have abundant fruit,
  • 00:25:07
    you're the first person to get to partake of the fruit.
  • 00:25:09
    That's a verse from second Timothy,
  • 00:25:11
    it says the hard working farmer
  • 00:25:12
    is the first to partake of the fruit.
  • 00:25:17
    You can be cut off, you can miss out.
  • 00:25:19
    You can go through life fruitless.
  • 00:25:20
    That's not what God has for you.
  • 00:25:23
    How would you do that, by the way?
  • 00:25:24
    How would you become fruitless?
  • 00:25:26
    Is it accident, you know, it just kind of happenstance?
  • 00:25:29
    Just bad things happen? Well, no.
  • 00:25:32
    Part of this, I did a lot of research on vines.
  • 00:25:34
    You know, I was really interested, like,
  • 00:25:36
    how does how do vines grow?
  • 00:25:37
    And I found this whole crazy corner of the internet
  • 00:25:39
    where people are, like, hobbyist vine growers
  • 00:25:41
    and so learned a whole bunch about vines
  • 00:25:43
    that I'm never going to use ever again.
  • 00:25:45
    But I learned something really interesting.
  • 00:25:49
    A vine, every branch in a vine
  • 00:25:51
    will grow along the ground.
  • 00:25:53
    It'll search until it finds something to climb up
  • 00:25:57
    and cover, it's called a wild vine.
  • 00:26:00
    This is a picture of a wild vine.
  • 00:26:01
    You've probably seen scenes like this
  • 00:26:03
    as you drive around, maybe even as you're driving
  • 00:26:06
    south on 75, you're going to Florida or Disney World
  • 00:26:09
    or whatever, you see the kudzu like in Tennessee,
  • 00:26:11
    Georgia, it just covers billboards and stop signs
  • 00:26:14
    and trees and all kinds of stuff.
  • 00:26:16
    It just covers everything. That's a wild vine.
  • 00:26:20
    This is the same thing that we have today.
  • 00:26:22
    You and I naturally are wild vines.
  • 00:26:25
    And what we'll do is we will crawl along the ground
  • 00:26:29
    in whatever environment we happen to be in
  • 00:26:32
    until we find something to grow around.
  • 00:26:36
    Now these things -- Oh, golf. Who loves golf?
  • 00:26:41
    Golf is awesome, right?
  • 00:26:43
    What we'll do is we'll just, we'll just be walking
  • 00:26:45
    around on the ground, just kind of crawl. Oh, a golf club.
  • 00:26:48
    Ooh, I'm going to bend my life to golf.
  • 00:26:50
    And we shape our time and our resources around golf.
  • 00:26:55
    Then some of us, we go over here, we're like,
  • 00:26:56
    ooh, a perfect family. Ooh, look at that.
  • 00:26:59
    I'm going to shape myself around having
  • 00:27:00
    the perfect family that show us up
  • 00:27:02
    really well on Instagram. So perfect. It'd be great.
  • 00:27:05
    Some of us, we find a little house, we're like,
  • 00:27:07
    ooh, look, ooh, a house. I would like a bigger house.
  • 00:27:10
    This would be fantastic.
  • 00:27:11
    I'm going to make my life about having a bigger house.
  • 00:27:13
    Then after that house, ooh, an even bigger one.
  • 00:27:15
    Oh, that'd be great.
  • 00:27:16
    Others of us would go over here, we're like,
  • 00:27:18
    oh, yeah, health, body beautiful. Let's do it.
  • 00:27:22
    It's great. That's kind of heavy. I'll put that down.
  • 00:27:27
    We're wild branches, left on our own,
  • 00:27:29
    we will find something to grow ourselves around,
  • 00:27:32
    something that will become our shape.
  • 00:27:34
    Now, I picked these for a reason.
  • 00:27:36
    It's because they're all mine.
  • 00:27:38
    That's why I've been trying to get healthier
  • 00:27:42
    and work out.
  • 00:27:43
    I started playing golf a lot more
  • 00:27:45
    in the last couple of years.
  • 00:27:46
    Hasn't lowered my handicap or anything,
  • 00:27:48
    but playing a lot more.
  • 00:27:49
    I live in a house where me and my wife
  • 00:27:53
    share one bathroom to shower, brush our teeth,
  • 00:27:55
    all the things with all of our kids.
  • 00:27:58
    Not great, you know, not the dream.
  • 00:28:01
    I'd like a different house or more house or something.
  • 00:28:04
    I like my family to be great.
  • 00:28:06
    And you know what I did just get a promotion.
  • 00:28:08
    That's what this represents.
  • 00:28:09
    I couldn't find, like, a nameplate or anything,
  • 00:28:11
    just a trophy, so I've got the corner office, you know,
  • 00:28:14
    the big job here.
  • 00:28:16
    Here's the point: none of these things,
  • 00:28:19
    in and of themselves are bad.
  • 00:28:21
    When Jesus says to grow fruit, or to be fruitless,
  • 00:28:26
    He doesn't mean that you have to enjoy
  • 00:28:28
    only church stuff.
  • 00:28:29
    You can't have anything good in your life.
  • 00:28:31
    That's not the point. It's not the point.
  • 00:28:33
    But let me be very clear, while I love all these things,
  • 00:28:36
    my life is not shaped around any of them.
  • 00:28:39
    None of them. They don't steer my dreams.
  • 00:28:42
    They're not my ultimate thing
  • 00:28:43
    that I'm thinking about every day,
  • 00:28:45
    waking up and going, how do I how do I get more?
  • 00:28:47
    How do I get further?
  • 00:28:48
    When that's true for you,
  • 00:28:50
    and yours might be other stuff, I don't know what it is,
  • 00:28:53
    when that's true for you, you are a wild vine
  • 00:28:55
    shaping yourself to something other than Jesus
  • 00:28:57
    and you will, will, will be fruitless.
  • 00:29:02
    So how does fruitfulness happen?
  • 00:29:04
    How would you end up being the vine
  • 00:29:06
    that bears much fruit? Is that accidental?
  • 00:29:09
    Are you born with some kind of a spiritual gene?
  • 00:29:12
    No, not at all. Not at all.
  • 00:29:16
    See, the contrast to a wild vine is a trellised vine.
  • 00:29:22
    A vine that somebody has come along, a gardener,
  • 00:29:24
    and carefully cultivated it and given it a structure.
  • 00:29:27
    A trellis is a really intentional structure
  • 00:29:29
    designed to lift a vine up off the ground
  • 00:29:33
    that's going to protect it from rot and bugs.
  • 00:29:36
    It's going to expose it to air.
  • 00:29:38
    It's going to expose it to the sun.
  • 00:29:40
    It's going to more evenly distribute moisture on it
  • 00:29:42
    without getting bogged down into puddles
  • 00:29:43
    where that rot might grow or fungus might develop.
  • 00:29:46
    A trellis is what a vine needs to grow
  • 00:29:49
    and become abundantly, abundantly fruitful.
  • 00:29:53
    Now, a trellis is essentially God's Word.
  • 00:29:58
    He's the vine dresser. He's the gardener.
  • 00:30:02
    And what He uses, like we saw in Nehemiah
  • 00:30:04
    in the beginning, is His Word as the thing
  • 00:30:07
    to prop us up, to lift us up,
  • 00:30:10
    for us to shape ourselves around.
  • 00:30:12
    Now, in Nehemiah, it was the Old Testament law, right?
  • 00:30:14
    It was the Book of Moses that they read from.
  • 00:30:16
    Well, we're actually post Jesus, which means
  • 00:30:19
    the Old Testament law isn't the thing
  • 00:30:20
    that we shape ourselves to anymore.
  • 00:30:22
    The thing we shape ourselves to
  • 00:30:23
    is the one who fulfilled the law, that's Jesus.
  • 00:30:27
    And Jesus said in John 14:6:
  • 00:30:35
    He's the way, meaning the way of life,
  • 00:30:38
    the way of acting, the way of organizing
  • 00:30:41
    the practices that you do, that's Jesus.
  • 00:30:44
    And the ancient believers, they spent a lot of time
  • 00:30:46
    on this idea of the way.
  • 00:30:47
    And the way that they started to describe it
  • 00:30:49
    or think of it was as a rule of life.
  • 00:30:52
    Not rules, by the way, but rule
  • 00:30:55
    comes from the Latin word regula,
  • 00:30:57
    which literally means a straight piece of wood,
  • 00:31:01
    not about measuring up.
  • 00:31:02
    It's about a support structure.
  • 00:31:04
    It's it's this piece right here, that is a regula.
  • 00:31:09
    It's a way of living.
  • 00:31:11
    Now the the point of it, like I said,
  • 00:31:14
    is to help you bear and grow fruit.
  • 00:31:17
    At Crossroads we have one of these.
  • 00:31:20
    It's called the seven practices that I showed you earlier.
  • 00:31:24
    It's our way of describing these are the things
  • 00:31:26
    that you would do if you wanted
  • 00:31:27
    to becom a fruitful person.
  • 00:31:30
    You receive weekly teaching, connect with God daily,
  • 00:31:32
    serve others, live generously, join community,
  • 00:31:34
    get baptized, share your story.
  • 00:31:36
    And I'm telling you, those things
  • 00:31:37
    might sound like so basic to you.
  • 00:31:39
    Like, "Kyle, really, all this just for those things?
  • 00:31:41
    Aren't those kind of obvious?"
  • 00:31:42
    Well, yeah, but are you doing them?
  • 00:31:45
    Is your life shaped to them?
  • 00:31:47
    Do you make choices away from other things to them?
  • 00:31:51
    Do you invest your time and your resources
  • 00:31:52
    in these things or in something else?
  • 00:31:55
    And if you're like, "Well, I don't know."
  • 00:31:56
    Well, have an idea for you.
  • 00:31:57
    If you want to know what your life is shaped to,
  • 00:32:00
    ask your spouse or your best friend or your roommate.
  • 00:32:06
    They'll tell you.
  • 00:32:08
    What are you shaping yourself to?
  • 00:32:11
    You might be wondering, you know, is this kind of
  • 00:32:13
    a rigor, is this kind of a thing, a way of life,
  • 00:32:16
    a trellis, these these seven things.
  • 00:32:17
    Do I need this? Is this really necessary, Kyle?
  • 00:32:20
    Is it necessary to do all this stuff?
  • 00:32:22
    Well, I heard a story about Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
  • 00:32:25
    who is a faith hero of mine.
  • 00:32:27
    He was an anti-Nazi activist in Germany
  • 00:32:30
    in the 1930s and 40s, eventually martyred
  • 00:32:32
    for his part in trying to overthrow Hitler.
  • 00:32:36
    Now, Dietrich started out as a reasonable guy,
  • 00:32:39
    very reasonable, came from a reasonable family.
  • 00:32:41
    They weren't really Christians or very religious or anything.
  • 00:32:44
    They were just kind of reasonable family
  • 00:32:46
    and Dietrich got a really reasonable job
  • 00:32:48
    at a university in Munich.
  • 00:32:49
    And he was kind of teaching.
  • 00:32:50
    And then the Nazi Party came to power,
  • 00:32:53
    and they started to just kind of overwhelm the people
  • 00:32:55
    and capture their minds.
  • 00:32:57
    And everybody who was just that branch
  • 00:32:58
    crawling on the ground found the ideology
  • 00:33:00
    and just sort of bent themselves around it.
  • 00:33:03
    So Dietrich was like, "I got to do something about this."
  • 00:33:05
    And so he quits his job.
  • 00:33:07
    He leaves Munich and he goes out into the rural,
  • 00:33:09
    kind of backwoods of Germany, and he establishes
  • 00:33:13
    an underground seminary where he's going to train pastors.
  • 00:33:16
    He's going to develop a curriculum, like a trellis,
  • 00:33:18
    for them to grow around so that they become fruitful,
  • 00:33:21
    even though the sky is covered
  • 00:33:23
    with this great evil called Nazism.
  • 00:33:26
    He called it finkenwalde.
  • 00:33:28
    So he goes out and he starts doing this work.
  • 00:33:30
    And a couple of years go by and his family thinks,
  • 00:33:33
    "Well, maybe Dietrich will kind of
  • 00:33:34
    get it out of his system," but he never did.
  • 00:33:37
    And so finally they sent a family friend out
  • 00:33:39
    to go get him, and the family friend shows up
  • 00:33:41
    to Finkenwalde and just says to Dietrich, says,
  • 00:33:44
    "Hey, man, you know, isn't this, um, isn't this enough?
  • 00:33:48
    Hasn't it been long enough?
  • 00:33:49
    I mean, is any of this stuff, is it even necessary?
  • 00:33:54
    And Bonhoeffer didn't say anything to him.
  • 00:33:56
    He just walked to the edge of a lake.
  • 00:33:58
    Finkenwalde was on this giant lake
  • 00:34:00
    and gets into a rowboat, motions for his friend to get in.
  • 00:34:03
    Rows them across the lake, gets out of the boat,
  • 00:34:06
    and they walk up a hill.
  • 00:34:08
    And at the top of the hill you can see
  • 00:34:11
    a valley down to the other side,
  • 00:34:12
    and in that valley was a Hitler Youth Training center,
  • 00:34:16
    where people are being bent and shaped
  • 00:34:19
    to the ideologies of Nazism.
  • 00:34:22
    And Bonhoeffer said, "You asked me is this necessary?"
  • 00:34:27
    He said, "Yes, because this,"
  • 00:34:30
    and he pointed at Finkenwalde,
  • 00:34:32
    "must become stronger than that,"
  • 00:34:34
    the Hitler Youth Training Center.
  • 00:34:36
    And friends, I know, I'm so thankful
  • 00:34:38
    we don't live in Nazi Germany.
  • 00:34:40
    So, so thankful. How great is that?
  • 00:34:42
    But please don't be deluded.
  • 00:34:44
    Do you think the kingdom of darkness
  • 00:34:46
    is taking a few decades off?
  • 00:34:48
    Do you think that the culture we live in
  • 00:34:51
    doesn't have just as evil intentions
  • 00:34:52
    to pull us away from the things of God
  • 00:34:54
    and shape our dreams and shape our thinking
  • 00:34:57
    to something besides Him? Because it does.
  • 00:34:59
    It's still here, and you will either shape yourself
  • 00:35:03
    to something that's not Jesus,
  • 00:35:04
    or you shape yourself to Him.
  • 00:35:06
    Those are your only options.
  • 00:35:09
    The goal of all this is to look like Jesus, by the way.
  • 00:35:11
    Jesus described it this way in Matthew 16:
  • 00:35:28
    The invitation is to actually take up the practice,
  • 00:35:32
    to to take it upon yourself.
  • 00:35:35
    I started doing this, by the way,
  • 00:35:36
    these seven practices I had heard.
  • 00:35:37
    I've been part of forming them,
  • 00:35:39
    and we had talked about them for a while.
  • 00:35:40
    It's probably about nine months ago,
  • 00:35:42
    the beginning of last summer.
  • 00:35:43
    I just had this conviction moment where I went,
  • 00:35:45
    "Oh, what about my life, God?
  • 00:35:48
    There might be some things in here
  • 00:35:49
    that that I'm missing."
  • 00:35:51
    And so I looked through the seven
  • 00:35:52
    and was kind of praying about it and thinking about it,
  • 00:35:54
    and I got convicted about the one that said Serve Others.
  • 00:35:58
    I thought, "Well, you know, my whole job is serving.
  • 00:36:00
    God, that's what I do.
  • 00:36:01
    And that's the genuine kind of mindset I try to take
  • 00:36:04
    to pastoring is I'm here to serve you.
  • 00:36:06
    I'm here to help you. You know?"
  • 00:36:08
    God was like, "Well, yeah, but, uh, that's your job.
  • 00:36:13
    What are you doing that you don't have to?
  • 00:36:16
    Who are you serving that you don't have to serve?"
  • 00:36:21
    I didn't have a good answer, so I signed up.
  • 00:36:24
    I went to middle school camp, led a group of 8th grade boys.
  • 00:36:27
    It was terrifying and awesome all at the same time.
  • 00:36:31
    And since I've been volunteering
  • 00:36:32
    in middle school ministry leading 8th grade boys
  • 00:36:35
    at Crossroads East Side.
  • 00:36:38
    Can I just tell you how much more abundant my life feels.
  • 00:36:43
    How much more joy I have,
  • 00:36:46
    how much more I can sense God.
  • 00:36:48
    Why? Because I'm trying to shape myself to Him.
  • 00:36:53
    He said, "Take up my cross.
  • 00:36:54
    Take up your cross. Follow me."
  • 00:36:58
    This isn't a self-help. This isn't self-actualization.
  • 00:37:00
    This isn't about becoming the best version of yourself.
  • 00:37:02
    This is about becoming like Jesus,
  • 00:37:05
    pure and simple, that's it.
  • 00:37:08
    The apostle Paul said this, Philippians 3:8,
  • 00:37:10
    he says that his goal is:
  • 00:37:23
    The idea is to be conformed to the Cross.
  • 00:37:25
    Now we think that a cross
  • 00:37:27
    is shaped like a lowercase t, right?
  • 00:37:30
    But if you go back to ancient drawings and artworks
  • 00:37:32
    of crosses, they look a lot more like this over here.
  • 00:37:35
    This is the artist Giotto from the Arena Chapel
  • 00:37:38
    in Padua, Italy. Painted that in 1305.
  • 00:37:40
    You'll notice that that cross
  • 00:37:43
    is more like an uppercase T,
  • 00:37:46
    two pieces of wood and a sign on top.
  • 00:37:50
    It looks a lot like a trellis.
  • 00:37:53
    This is the call of Christ.
  • 00:37:57
    If you want to be fruitful, you bend your life to Him,
  • 00:38:00
    you give your life away,
  • 00:38:03
    you love people the way that He loved people.
  • 00:38:06
    Right before He did this teaching, like I said,
  • 00:38:08
    he was downstairs in the Upper Room,
  • 00:38:11
    and He did the thing with the bread and the wine
  • 00:38:13
    that we now commemorate as communion.
  • 00:38:16
    These were His words, Matthew 26 says:
  • 00:38:47
    Did you notice Jesus never said the word wine?
  • 00:38:49
    He called it fruit.
  • 00:38:52
    You know, every grape starts out,
  • 00:38:55
    every glass of wine starts out as a grape.
  • 00:38:58
    A grape that has to be crushed.
  • 00:39:00
    A grapes that has to be sacrificed.
  • 00:39:03
    And this is the destiny of all fruit.
  • 00:39:05
    It's not to keep it for yourself.
  • 00:39:08
    It's to let yourself be crushed
  • 00:39:09
    so that your life can nourish somebody else
  • 00:39:11
    so they might know and love and follow God because of you.
  • 00:39:17
    Now a grape gets crushed
  • 00:39:19
    and gets put away into the darkness for a while.
  • 00:39:23
    When it comes out, it's something new. It's wine.
  • 00:39:25
    We're going to take communion to close out our time together.
  • 00:39:29
    This is a time to remember and reflect on
  • 00:39:32
    the fruitful life that Jesus lived for you,
  • 00:39:35
    so that you might bear much fruit.
  • 00:39:39
    Time to have a conversation with God.
  • 00:39:41
    And we're going to do this a little bit differently.
  • 00:39:44
    We're actually going to use grapes instead of wine
  • 00:39:48
    to remind ourselves of that, that He was crushed.
  • 00:39:51
    Isaiah 53 says:
  • 00:40:02
    So as you have communion, as you take that grape,
  • 00:40:05
    I want you to bite into it.
  • 00:40:07
    I want you to imagine the crushing
  • 00:40:09
    that Jesus went through for you,
  • 00:40:12
    not to make you feel guilty,
  • 00:40:13
    but to make you feel grateful.
  • 00:40:15
    And I want you to ask Him how you might
  • 00:40:17
    step into living that life of fruitfulness too.
  • 00:40:20
    And in just a minute, your campus pastor
  • 00:40:22
    is going to come on stage and give you instruction
  • 00:40:24
    or come on video and give you instructions.
  • 00:40:26
    But for now, let me pray for you.
  • 00:40:28
    God, thank you, thank you, thank you
  • 00:40:31
    for living the abundant life,
  • 00:40:33
    for inviting us into fruitfulness.
  • 00:40:36
    And I just ask that You'd help us take a step
  • 00:40:38
    this week, a step closer to living
  • 00:40:40
    the way that You want us to live,
  • 00:40:41
    to practicing the things You want us to practice.
  • 00:40:43
    That we may be the garden that You love,
  • 00:40:45
    the vineyard that's so fruitful.
  • 00:40:47
    We might even see something as crazy
  • 00:40:49
    as a hundred fold return in our lifetime.
  • 00:40:52
    We love You. Amen.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to the Weekend-Follow Up! This is the group part of the Bible Challenge, so your questions are based on specific Bible passages from the weekend message. Each week, your group will discover what God might be saying to you, and how you can respond through a group discussion.

  1. Who’s your favorite singer? Why?

  2. What stood out to you most from the message?

  3. What has spiritual growth looked like in your life? OR What are ways you have grown spiritually throughout your life?

  4. What’s an area of your life or a relationship where you feel like growth is impossible? What’s an area where growth feels easy?

  5. Read John 15:2. Where do you see God pruning “branches” from your life?

  6. What’s your life wrapped around? Are you a wild vine, or a trellis vine?

  7. Read Matthew 13:23. What does your “much” look like? What do you believe it could look like?

  8. What’s one step you can take to grow spiritually this week? If you’re stuck, identify one of the 7 Proven Practices into your routine and share which one you’re going to do.

  9. Let’s end with prayer. You can say something like, “Jesus, thank you for your abundant life. Thank you for cutting off the branches of our lives that steal from us. Thank you for pruning us. Help us continue to spiritually grow and bear fruit for your kingdom. Amen.”

More from the Weekend

Bonus Questions! Check these out if you’re on a roll and want to go a little deeper.

  • Think of a time your life felt especially fruitful. What was true of your life during that time?
  • Where do you think you could expand the vision of your life? Where is your fruit being limited?

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(This stuff helps us figure out how many fruitcakes to make come December)

You must include at least one person

Got it! Enjoy your discussion.


Feb 3, 2024 1 hr 8 mins 53 sec

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