Part 1 and Part 2
Welcome to Rooted! We have a special night planned and I am really excited to see God working in this room. He is changing hearts, He is changing lives, and He is changing you and me. Tonight we are going to glorify God and I hope to edify the body Christ. We are going to have communion tonight in remembrance of what Jesus did upon that cross. We are also going to give an opportunity for you to share with this body of believers your thankfulness for what Christ is doing in your lives. We have also a short video clip from Saving Private Ryan, all kinds of fun stuff to talk about and see tonight. I am overflowing with gratitude tonight and you will see why!
We have been learning what it means to walk in Jesus Christ the Lord. We have answered two questions in the last couple of weeks, the first is why, why do I want to walk in Him? I know you have this answer in your head, because He is Lord. He has given us life and has transferred us to His Son’s Kingdom. He died upon that cross to give us life. That is why we want to walk in Him.
And last week we talked about how. How do I walk in Him? First, at a given point in time I must become rooted in Him. It is when He becomes the Lord of our lives. We put our faith and trust in Him it is when we believe in His death and resurrection upon the cross. It is when we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that He is Lord.
Then we are built up in Him. This is a continuous process not a one-time event. We have our foundation established by being rooted in Jesus and then we are ready to be built up. We get built up in a two-fold process; first we need to understand what God wants from us. We go to scripture for all spiritual matters to know what He wants from us, then the second half of the process is that we must apply it to our lives. A head full of knowledge about God is useless unless we apply it.
We get rooted then built up in Him we then become established in our faith. It is the promise of God that He establishes us for all of eternity.
Do you know why we are here tonight? For one reason to give Him glory. He deserves all glory. I hope tonight we get to glorify Him and praise His name in all we do.
Please open your Bibles to Colossians 2:6-7 and lets take one last look out our passage. Tonight we are going to be focusing on the last 3 words of this passage. It is a result of everything that we have learned in the last two weeks. Let’s read.
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.
Overflowing with thankfulness. That is the outcome of all that we have learned. It is our hearts filled with love for our Lord, our hearts are full appreciation for what He has done for each one of us. We should be walking in Him, overflowing with gratitude. If you are walking in him this is the attitude you will have. If you are not excited and overflowing with gratitude then you might want to check if you are really walking with Him. Now of course its not that we are bouncing off the walls every moment but when we think about Christ and what He has done I hope that overflowing thankfulness wells up in your heart. If it does not then you better check whether you are truly rooted in Him.
Tonight you are going to be given the opportunity to share what you are grateful for, what is overflowing in your heart? How has Christ changed your life and what are you thankful for? But before we get to that I want us to see a human example of what God has done for us.
I want to take a look at this video clip from Saving Private Ryan. And see what it looks like when man lays his life down for another man. In the movie Private Ryan was one of 4 brothers who went off to fight in WWII. His other 3 brothers ended up dying and the US government sent men out to look for him to bring him home back to his mother so the entire family was not lost. The ultimate cost was paid to save him. Please watch.
John 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:14 “You are My friends if you do what I command you.
John 15:15 “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
John 15:16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
John 15:17 “This I command you, that you love one another.
There is no greater love than someone who lays his life down for a friend.
The video clip we just watched showed us the ultimate human sacrifice or as the bible says the ultimate picture of love, one man giving his life for another.
Can you believe the creator of all things has come down to this dark earth and laid down His life for you and me? He is the one person who lived a perfect life, He is the one person who was completely sinless, and He is the one person who did not deserve to die but He did. He was willing to die in our place. He was willing to pay our debt.
Are you walking in Him overflowing with gratitude?
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. When Jesus imputed His righteousness into us it is the day that we were rooted in Him. It was the day we were saved.
The Creator of the universe, Jesus Christ the Lord, who we have become rooted in, and now being built up in Him and established us in our faith, as we have been instructed should cause an out bursting of overflowing gratitude and thankfulness. This is what God has taught us through Paul’s teaching.
Are you overflowing with gratitude in your soul? Should we Walk in HIM or what? I kick myself and think about all the times I walk away from Him and instead of walking in Him I ignore Him or worse yet I turn my back on Him. Oh wretched man that I am who can save me from myself! Thank heavens Jesus can and does and will.
I think about that video clip and really how insufficient it really is, our God is a million times greater than what those men did for Private Ryan. Our God gave us life and He has saved us from an eternity of suffering. If you noticed in the video the Captain told him to earn it. Earn this gift of life we have given you. Our God tells us you can’t earn but I am going to give the gift of salvation to you anyways. I am going to take all the punishment you deserve, I am going to take your place on that cross and die for your debt. Is it not amazing?!!!
Walk in Him overflowing with gratitude. I pray that each one of you have done this:
Confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, that you will be saved;
Rom. 10:10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
If you say you have then….walk in Him, be rooted in Him, be built up in Him, be established in your faith in Him.
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