Part 1 and Part 3
This ministry is for one person and one person alone. It is for Jesus Christ. We are here so we can glorify Him. We are going to glorify Him through our lives and that can look so different for each one of us. Some of us have the gift of playing an instrument or singing with your voices. As much as I want to have that gift God did not give it to me. Others have the ability to preach and teach, or you may have the gift of servitude, or maybe your gift is compassion for the elderly. I don’t know what your gift is but what I do know is all of you have a gift. We want to help you with your gift and encourage you to use. See we want to build up a body of believers who make an impact in this world. Everything we do inside these four walls is to equip you when you leave to be the church to the world. To be a light unto the world, to reflect Jesus to everyone who comes in contact with you to love those people who are lost. We want to be a community of believers who change this world so those who are not giving glory to God turn their lives over to Him and give Him glory. We want to build up His Church. We want to walk in Him.
Tonight we are going to look at how we walk in Him. Last week we answered the question why we should walk in Him. Do you remember why? Because He is Lord!!
He is the God of the universe, He is Creator God of all things and all things were created by Him and for Him.
We also know as believers in Christ he has transferred us from the domain of darkness to His Son’s kingdom. At one moment in time we were perishing forever and the very next moment we are transferred by God into His Sons kingdom.
How were we transferred? How does this happen do you remember Romans 10:9-10
Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
Romans 10:10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
It is by making Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives. When we confess Jesus as Lord and believe that He died for your sins and was raised from the dead you will be saved. He has conquered death. God has given us the greatest gift. He has laid down His life to save our lives. He has paid our debt upon that cross.
This is the ultimate reason why we want to walk in Him as we learned.
So our question we want to answer tonight is how do I walk in Him. What does it mean when Paul tells the Colossian people to walk in Christ Jesus the Lord.
How do I walk in Christ and what does that look like?
Well to answer that question we better take a look into our bibles for that answer. This is where we find all answers to any spiritual questions you may have.
Please open your Bibles to Colossians 2:6-7
Col. 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
Col. 2:7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.
This is such a fantastic passage to study. We are answering the question how should I walk in Him and Paul gives us 4 ways how and tonight we are going to cover the first three and the 4th is really a result of what He has done for us.
Here we see Paul writes having been firmly rooted, now being built up and established in your faith. What is really interesting is that each of these things we are to do has a perfect tense of the participle. The verb of each of these things goes from past, to present to future.
Having been Rooted this means at some point in time the eternal planting of salvation has taken place and we are to grow deep roots into Christ. Christ has become the source of our spiritual nourishment; we grow because our roots are planted deeply in Christ.
Now being built up in Christ, is the process of being more and more like Jesus Christ by continuous action in our present lives. We will keep growing and be built up in Christ. It is the things that we are doing now to build our lives upon Him.
Lastly, the results of being rooted and built up in Him cause believers to be established in their faith. It is an act of God working in our lives that establishes us in our faith for all of eternity. Once we have this faith God continues to establish it for us for all eternity. We have past, present and future events as we walk in Him.
Like a tree with deep roots in a rich soil believers have been firmly rooted in Christ. That eternal planting took place on the day of salvation. It is when Christ became the source of our spiritual nourishment and growth. It is the day we say Jesus Christ is Lord. It is the day we received Him and we bow our knees to His Lordship. It is the day we confessed with our mouth and believed in our hearts that He is who He says He is. It really is the day we were planted as believers and we grow deep in Him. For us to walk in Him we have to be saved. It all starts when we plant our roots in Christ. This is a one-time event in our lives. We get rooted once and we grow in Him. Once you are rooted in Him you can never be uprooted. Once we are saved we are always saved. You cannot lose your salvation you cannot be uprooted.
It reminds me of John Chapter 10
John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
John 10:28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
John 10:29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
But what happens if our roots are not deep in Christ but are really rooted in this world?
Let’s use the illustration of a tree. A big tree with lots of foliage and lets say this tree represents our life. And this tree has tons of branches representing all the good things in it. I have a great job, I have an awesome wife and kids, I just got a raise at work, we just got back from a Tahiti vacation, we just got a new 4000 square foot house over looking the ocean, you get the idea life seems swell. Yeah I go to church on Christmas and Easter. Yeah I walked down at a Harvest Crusade and said the sinner’s prayer but honestly everything else besides God is important in my life. The tree looks really good on the outside but it has no roots in Christ. Then one physical at the DR office and the next thing you know you are diagnosed with a brain tumor and it is all going to end very soon for you. All that has been important to you are the things of this world and the pleasures of the here and now. Want to know what your life is going to look like? [Slide 1] It has been uprooted. Not being rooted in Christ is going to leave you in a disastrous situation. Everything looks really good on the outside but you have no roots in what is important, Jesus Christ. The results have eternal consequences if you are not rooted in Christ.
What is the results if your roots are deep in Christ and you are walking with Christ as your Lord? Has anyone ever seen one of these? [Slide 2] It is a stump grinder.
I remember when my next-door neighbor had 4 fairly large trees all planted next to one another and he decided it was time to get rid of them. He chopped them down and cut up the branches but he was left with 4 stumps hence why he needed the stump grinder. Now let me tell you this is a piece of manly equipment. It has a motor, it makes a lot of noise, its got a throttle, and it takes a lot of effort to control it without killing yourself.
Anyways my neighbor let me try it out and we ground these stumps down to nothing. It was crazy it was like riding a motorcycle out of control. There were wood chips flying everywhere. His backyard was covered in wood chips. All that was left were 4 big holes where the stumps used to be.
I helped him clean up. We raked all the chips covered the holes and we laid brand new sod down on the ground. His backyard looked beautiful and these 4 trees were no more. But you know what happened about 3 weeks later? Lo and behold there were what seemed like a hundred new trees growing up through his brand new lawn. So we pealed back the lawn and started digging. You know what we found? Big giant roots and they were growing! We dug as many as we could and the pile of roots was huge. We laid the lawn back again and you know what happened in about 6 weeks? MORE TREES!!
These roots were deep! They just kept coming back. It is the same when we put our roots deep in Jesus Christ. No matter the situation if our roots are deep in Him life can throw us any curveball and things may look hopeless but that is not the case. We are rooted in Him and He will always sustain us in every situation that we face. We establish our roots deep in Him and our faith will be established to the end. It is His promise.
If we want to walk in Him we must first make Him Lord of our lives, we must be rooted in Him. You are getting the right nourishment your foundation is solid. You are ready to be built up.
Paul says so you have been rooted in Him now I want you to be built up in Him. We are to grow in Christ. Our roots are in the right spot now we need to be built up in Him. This is not a one-time event but this is our continued growth in Christ. Our continued walk in Him, to live for Him daily. How do I figure out what He wants, where do I go to get this information on how my Lord wants me to walk in him? How am I supposed to be built up? What should my life look like?
Have you ever really wanted to learn something that you have never done before? I think about Photography and the skills you need to take really great photos. Have you ever tried to use a camera with all manual controls? I know most today have auto settings but sometimes auto settings are not going to get the desired picture you want.
I remember wanting to learn how to take these great nighttime photos but every time I tried to take them they would come out blurry, to dark or just plain old ugly. I made a decision I wanted to learn how to take great nighttime photos, but I knew nothing about it. I knew I needed a new camera with manual controls so I went out and bought one and thought that was going to do it. I did my research and found a really nice camera but I still didn’t understand how to take great nighttime photos. They were still coming out blurry and dark. What was I missing? I was missing a manual on how to take nighttime photos. I needed to understand what it took to take great photos. There was a lot to understand about taking them. I found out I was still missing some essential equipment to take them. I needed a tripod to hold the camera still. You can’t take good photos without one. I had to understand shutter speeds, aperture size, ISO sensitivity. I had to understand how all these combinations worked to take good pictures. The book I used explained all these technical terms that I had no understanding of before. I could have kept guessing on how to use the camera but the results were going to come out the same, just bad. I had to go to the manual to figure it out.
It is the same with being built up in Christ. We don’t become a Christian then just know how to walk in Him. How are we built up in Him? We need to understand our manual. We need to study and read our bibles and apply those principals we learn into action. It is a two fold processes in being built up. First I have to understand what is required from me and second I need to apply those things to my life. It is how we are built up. Our Christian walk in Christ is a combination of many things in our life, it consist of worshiping God, growing in holiness, prayer, fellowship, obedience, understanding who Jesus is, all these things are like understanding how to take nighttime photos you just don’t get a camera and start shooting beautiful photos but you have to study, you have to practice taking pictures you have to know all the components of taking the pictures. And when we walk in Christ it is the same thing, there are many things that God wants from us and we learn these over time.
Have you ever seen a stalagmite? [Slide 3] Here is a picture of a massive stalagmite in the Carlsbad Caverns. Do you know how a stalagmite grows? It is just a little water dripping down to the ground that contains calcium carbonate and starts to build it up from the ground up. A drip of water built this massive stalagmite. It didn’t build itself over night but took just a little water over a long time to build it up. It is the same with our walk with Christ, you don’t become super Christian over night, you don’t become perfect the next day you become a Christian but over time as you dig into God’s word, and you pray, and you live a life of obedience you will be built up in Him just like this stalagmite was built with water over the years. It is on ongoing process that will continue till the day you die or the day Christ comes back for His own.
Those small decisions we make everyday help us be built up in Him. Am I going to watch that next episode of Lost or am I going to sit down and pray and read my bible. I am I going to use the gifts God has given me or am I going to play another video game? Am I going to spend my money all on me or am I going to give some to those in need? Am I going to watch something on the Internet that does not honor God or am I going to honor Him by turning my eyes from those things? Am I going to walk in Him or am I going to walk in me. Every time we live for Him or Walk in Him I am being built up in Christ.
Being firmly rooted in Christ and growing in Him results in believers being established in their faith.
Here we see that we are established in our faith this is the result of us rooted in Him and being built up in Him. Our faith becomes strengthened and we will not waver in our faith. We will not be tossed to and fro by every wave of doubt because we are established in Christ.
Our faith is strengthened when we are walking in Christ. You know when I lose faith or you know when those doubts creep into our minds? I know when I am at my weakest is when I am in sin. It is when I feel the furthest from Him and my faith can become very week.
It’s such a simple concept but why is it so hard for us to walk in Christ everyday being built up in Him strengthened in our faith.
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