Human Flourishing : Stop Striving to Please God. Start Abiding in Him.

All right, if you have your Bibles with me this morning, turn to John chapter 3 and let’s all stand. We’re going to read John chapter 3, verses 1 through 8. The title of the message this morning is Inconvenient Truths Regarding Spiritual Growth. Inconvenient Truths Regarding Spiritual Growth. We’re going to be in John chapter 3. Let’s read John 3, verses 1 through 8. Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him. Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. How can someone be born when they are old, Nicodemus asked. Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born. Jesus answered, very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. You should not be surprised by saying you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, I pray that there will be a special anointing on your word this morning. Lord, help us to understand that we need you in our lives. We need you in our lives for salvation. We need you in our lives for spiritual growth. Lord, we need you in our lives to live lives of purpose and meaning. Lord, thank you that you save us from our sin, which is a selfish life focused only on ourselves. Lord, and you save us so that we can serve you and serve others. Lord, anoint your word today. Open up our hearts and our ears. Give us spiritual ears to hear. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen. You may be seated. And God bless you. Well if you were with us for Family Church, which was May 31st, we kind of kicked this series off with the kids. We had tables up front, we had soil, and I remember over here we ended up with quite a bit of soil on the ground, and that was great because that’s why we did that. We wanted the kids to have fun. We had parents and kids and everybody was participating, and what a great Sunday that was. But now for the next few Sundays, we’re going to talk about the greenhouse effect. And there’s many examples of a greenhouse in the Bible. In fact, if you go back to the first garden, right, of the Bible is the Garden of Eden. Our God is a gardener. He is a God who loves to place us in special circumstances, special environments, so that we can grow. And God knows exactly what you and I need for us to grow. But I’m so thankful that God uses greenhouses. And the first greenhouse that he gave us in the Bible really was the Garden of Eden. But then we see that God gave us the family, and your family can be a greenhouse, a place of protection, a place of God’s presence. The church is also a greenhouse, isn’t it? And so God wants to place you in a church so that you can grow, so that you can experience his presence, so that you can grow in the purposes of God and the Word of God, the promises of God. And so we’re just going to continue this idea over the next many weeks that God has created for you and for me a special place to be. And I realize all families are different, but I want to encourage you at home, make sure that your home is a greenhouse. Make sure that your home is a place where people can experience the presence of God. They can experience the Word of God, the promises of God. And they can, through prayer, get in touch with the purposes of God for their life. That’s what our family should be. That’s what our home should be. And certainly that’s what we want to be as a church. Let’s begin with the first inconvenient truth of spiritual growth. The first inconvenient truth that I want to share with us this morning about spiritual growth is that spiritual growth requires childlike faith and humility. Let’s get back to our story, the story of Nicodemus in John chapter three, and I’m just going to read the first couple of verses so we can focus on this man named Nicodemus. Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him. One of the maybe truths that are hard for us to understand that if we want to, to enter into the kingdom of heaven, if we want to enter into the things of God, if we want to understand even the things of the kingdom, we’ve got to change. I want you to turn in your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 18. Matthew chapter 18, Jesus gives us a similar teaching or helps us to understand what Nicodemus must have understood because I love Nicodemus here because he’s kind of like Peter stepping out of the boat, right? Everyone else didn’t step out of the boat when Jesus said, come to me on the water, but Peter stepped out and here’s Nicodemus. He is a Pharisee and the Pharisees were one of the Jewish denominations in the day, right? Like the Sadducees and the Zealots. And the Pharisees were really, they were popular among the people. A lot of their beliefs caused them to be among the people, teaching the people. The Sadducees were more like a political group. They were connected to the temple and concerned about the Romans. And so Jesus was often among the Pharisees and he would have discussions with them, arguments with them. Of course, Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees was often, you know, stop being a hypocrite because they had these very high standards of, actually the Pharisees believed that you should keep every one of the 600 plus laws in the laws of Moses. And so their name even, Pharisee, meant separated ones. And so they were very into holiness, which is a good thing. That’s not a bad thing. But Jesus would often say, but, you know, do what they tell you to do, but don’t do what they do because they’re not really living up to all of their teachings. They were hypocrites. But here in Matthew 18, Jesus gives us an idea of what it means to change and become like little children so that we can be a part of the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18 verse one, at that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? That sounds like an adult question. It sounds like a question that we tend to focus on that, in fact, our culture, our world, we are always into the winner, aren’t we? We celebrate the winner. We don’t want to talk with the one who doesn’t win. We just want to talk with the one who’s the biggest, the baddest, the best. That’s what we’re into. That’s the culture of the world. That’s us. And so the disciples must have been a lot like us. So they come to Jesus, who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? You know, who has the biggest church? Who’s got the largest budget? You know, who drives the nicest car? Who’s really the winner? Sounds a lot like American culture. I think God has gradually been saving me from my culture for the last 40 plus years of my life because for much of my life, I’ve lived in that culture. High performance. You’ve got to win. You’ve got to win. You’ve got to win. Seems like there was some of that back in the days of the disciple. Who then, the disciples, who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? So Jesus, verse 2, he called a little child to him and placed the child among them. And he said, truly, I tell you, unless you change, let’s pause right there, unless you change, see, that’s what repentance looks like. If we really want to come into the kingdom of God, if we really want to walk with Jesus, if we really want to live a life that glorifies God, we’ve got to be willing to change. We’ve got to be willing to repent. We can’t just manage our sin. We can’t just sort of try to balance the good with the evil in our lives and say, well, we’re doing okay. But no, Jesus says, truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Now what is it about a child that Jesus is talking about? What is it that we see in Nicodemus? Because we do see in Nicodemus in these verses a humility. See, Nicodemus recognized that Jesus is connected with the Father. He calls him a rabbi. He says, I realize that you couldn’t do these things if you weren’t from God. He honors Jesus. He acknowledges that Jesus is from the Father. And we learn of Nicodemus that he’s a Pharisee, that he’s a member of the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin. It would have had about 70 members and they were the ruling, like the Supreme Court in the days of Jesus in Israel. So Nicodemus had a lot to lose. I mean, what if someone had found out that he was going for a private audience with Jesus? He was taking a risk. He was risking his status. He was risking his position as a Pharisee on the Jewish council. And so in these verses, I see a lot of humility in the life of Nicodemus. What does childlike faith look like? Because there’s some things about a child that we would just say is childish, right? We wouldn’t say, well, that’s what Jesus wants us to be. But when I think about what Jesus may be saying, if we’ll humble ourselves and become like a child, he’s talking about humility, realizing that having a high regard for God, God is greater than you. He’s greater than me. And we need to humble ourselves, lower ourselves. That seems to be what Nicodemus is doing. Nicodemus is also trusting. And I see that in a childlike faith. Some of you have young children. You’ve seen that in your children when they jump off the edge of a swimming pool or they’re standing on a ladder and turn around and say, Dad, catch me. And you’re not quite ready. And you’re thinking, what is this child doing? And they just trust that you’re going to take care of it, that you’re going to catch them, that you’re going to… Many of my kids as they were growing up and when they were younger would jump off the edge of a swimming pool, like they had no doubt that I would get them. And sometimes I was a little far away. And it would make your heart jump as a dad, like, whoa, what are you doing? Let me know that you’re jumping off the pool the next time when you’re two and a half years old, you know. Because I don’t want you to stay under there too long. But there’s something about a child that just trusts. And so Nicodemus comes to Jesus. Verse two, he came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. Nicodemus is trusting in Jesus. He’s humbling himself. He’s letting go of his status and his position. He’s not concerned about that. He wants to get to Jesus. He wants to talk with Jesus. He wants to have a personal interview, a personal exchange with Jesus. And he’s willing to humble himself. He trusts in Jesus. But I think most importantly, what I see in childlike faith, when Jesus says, you must change and become like a child, is a child is totally in the care of their parent. Even more than a child can even know when they’re five years old or eight years old. They don’t even realize all that goes on to the housing and the feeding and everything that has to take place in order for everything to be okay in that child’s life. And so what we see in a childlike faith that Nicodemus seems to exhibit and exemplify in John chapter 3 is he was humble, he was trusting, and he was fully surrendered to Jesus’ care. I just want to know, Jesus, what do you have for me? I just need to get to you because I’m not going to rest in the pride of my position or my status or my theological knowledge as a Pharisee, but I want to trust you and I want to take a risk and surrender my life to you. Church, I want to say to you today as a Christian that if you have not surrendered to Jesus, if you’ve not yielded up your life to the Lord, you’re missing out on what God has for your life. We can’t just sort of live as Christians. We can’t halfway be a Christian. We have to fully surrender our life to the Lord and say, Lord, you are master of this ship. You are Lord. You’re not only my Savior, but you are the Lord of my life. And I’m going to follow you whether I understand or don’t understand, whether my prayers are being answered right now or I’m getting a big no or I’m getting a wait. And I think sometimes, God, when we hear the no to a prayer, God’s readjusting our prayers so that we pray more in alignment with his will. It’s easy to praise the Lord when it seems like God is honoring everything you want in life. But we’ve got to keep praising God, whether we have a yes, a no, whether we win the race or lose the race, we’ve got to just keep praising the Lord. We’ve got to be fully surrendered to the Lord. The first inconvenient truth is simply, we’ve got to change. If we want to grow spiritually, I love that old graphic that has a guy climbing up a ladder and there’s like four rungs missing in the ladder and he’s trying to reach up to get higher. And then the saying is, you can’t get there the way you got here. In other words, you’ve been climbing the ladder and everything seems to work. The rungs are within your reach and now there’s four or five missing and now you can’t get up there the same way you’ve been climbing. You’re going to have to come up with a different route, a different strategy. And one of the inconvenient truths about salvation and walking with the Lord and entering the kingdom and growing in the kingdom of God is that you’re going to have to change. You want a better marriage? You’re going to have to change. You want something to change in your finances? Now I’m getting kind of touching, right? You’re going to have to change. And let me just say with your spouse, you can’t just always be pointing fingers at your spouse. You’re going to have to change. You want something to change in your parenting? You’re going to have to change. And that’s one of the, sometimes the most uncomfortable things you can hear from God’s word. It can feel so threatening. Like why do I need to change? I just want God to change my circumstance. Yeah, you know, amen. I just want God to change. I just want God to answer my prayers. Yes. I just want God to fix it. And I praise God that oftentimes God will, he will change circumstances. He will fix things in your life. He will rearrange things in your life. I’m so thankful for a all powerful, mighty God who has the ability to change the circumstances around me. But friend, in the meantime, God’s trying to change you. He wants you to grow. He wants you to see new things spiritually and have new spiritual insight, new discernment, new wisdom. And he wants to open up your spiritual eyesight. And that’s what we see taking place with Nicodemus was a, who was a Pharisee. And in this story, I, when I read this story, it’s easy to kind of get down on Nicodemus because at one point Jesus is pretty hard on him in these later verses saying, Hey, you’re a teacher of the, of the Jews and you know, all of the scriptures, how can you not understand what I’m saying? But what we know from later in scripture, if you turn with me to John chapter 19, verse 38 through 42, John 19, what we know is that Nicodemus was getting it. It was him. It was his humility. It was his trust. It was his surrender that Nicodemus really was listening to Jesus and he really was changing and he really was growing and, and he really was becoming more like a child and he was entering the kingdom of heaven. Look what John’s gospel tells us about Nicodemus in John 19, verse 38 through 42 later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who had earlier visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds, taking Jesus’ body. The two of them wrapped it with the spices and strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid because it was the Jewish day of preparation. And since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. And so we see at the end of Jesus’ life, his death, his burial, there is Nicodemus. And I believe Nicodemus, when he met with Jesus on this night, his heart truly was like a child. He was humble. He was wanting to grow. He was really wanting to learn from Jesus. And so we see that like Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus most likely became a follower of Jesus. He became a disciple of Jesus because he was willing to change. He was willing to become like a child. Lord, help me to trust you when I don’t understand. Help me to know that you have me in the palm of your hand even when I can’t understand what’s going on in my life. See, I think faith in God truly is easier when it seems like God’s hearing my prayers and answering them. When I’m spending time in prayer and I’m crying out to God and I get up next week and go, yep, God answered that prayer, praise the Lord, me and Jesus, we got a good thing going. And I’ve had those weeks, I’ve had those days, I’ve had those breakthroughs where I’ve been praying and praying and praying and I’ve been praying to the point of tears and then God comes through and I’m just like, wow, Lord, thank you, Lord Jesus. And I love those days. I love those moments when I pray for a child or a grandchild or something going on in my own life and God shows up and comes through and I’m like, praise the Lord, I must have been praying according to God’s will. God answered, he showed up. God’s getting the glory. Me and Jesus got a great thing going. And if I could just digress to say, Lord, if we could just keep that going all the time, I think I’d be fine with that. You see, one of the things about a parent versus a child, and I think Jenny may have started to preach my message a little bit earlier, no, you didn’t know anything about what I was going to preach, but you know, that’s a, that’s a powerful story because a lot of times as children, we’re just out living life, doing our thing, but God knows what’s best for us. And that’s why church, when we’re praying and praying and praying, and it seems like God says, wait, or God says, no, we need to be able to praise God in that moment. It’s a lot easier to preach than live. I’m being honest. I’m just up here preaching it. We’ve got to go live it. But in those moments when God says no, or God says, wait, or God says, I want you to change the way you’re praying because that’s not what I’m doing right now. Can we still praise God in those moments? Can we still thank the Lord in those moments? Lord helped me to have that kind of childlike faith. So so a first inconvenient truth is that we’ve got to change and we’ve got to have childlike faith and humility. A second inconvenient truth is, is simply you can’t save yourself. You can’t save yourself. If you go to a local library, you go to Barnes and Noble or you go to any, any, whether it’s online or in an actual brick and mortar bookstore, and you go look for the self-help section, you will discover that in our current culture, the self-help section is typically the largest section in the whole library. It’s the largest section in the whole, the whole bookstore. Why? Because as a culture, we are actually convinced that we can save ourselves. We can educate ourselves. We can get a degree. We can go get a better job. We have so much opportunity in America today. If we don’t like this job, we can get another job. And I know sometimes if we haven’t been outside the United States, we think, pastor, what are you talking about? It’s hard in America. And I understand that. I understand that to, to with rent prices and housing and utilities and gas, I mean, I get excited now when I see gas go under $4. And so I understand things are expensive, but if you go to even today is as expensive as things are in the United States, you go to another country and you realize that may, they may be only be making $200 a year or a thousand dollars a year. And then you realize, wow, we have a lot of resources. Yes, things seem difficult, but we, we have a lot of, of resources here. But the scripture tells us no matter how hard we try to work, no matter how hard we try to work things out for ourself, when it comes to the kingdom of God, when it comes to salvation, when it comes to spiritual growth, when it comes to truly living a life with purpose and meaning, you can’t do that yourself. You need God and you need the spirit. Look with me at verse three through verse eight. I think I’ve got verse three up there, but I want to read all the way to verse eight. Jesus, here, here’s the message of Jesus to us this morning. And this was the message to Nicodemus. Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, no one can see your, your translation may say understand or enter, but, but here I think the NIV has it right. It’s this, no one can see the kingdom of God. You can’t even see it. And the Greek word here is this idea to perceive or to have an understanding of. Truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. How can someone be born when they’re old? Nicodemus asked, surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born. And let me just think with you about verse four, you know, again, it’s easy to kind of get down on Nicodemus here. Like, well, yeah. Why, why does he understand? And I think later Jesus even kind of chastises him for not understanding. But how many times in my life when I’m walking with the Lord, and again, I’m on the, I’m on the side of life where it seems like God was answering my prayers and everything’s going great and I’m praising Jesus. And then something happens to me, to a friend, to a loved one, or I’m praying diligently for an outcome and I don’t get it. And then I’m like, yeah, Lord, I just don’t get you. You know, I mean, I’m, I’m being real this morning. I’ve been here just recently. And again, I remember Rick Warren, when he wrote his book, Purpose Driven Church, and he said before he wrote that book, he used to think that life was mountaintops and valleys. And then he wrote that book and it sold like crazy and he gave back his salary to his church. He didn’t even need to take, I mean, not just that year, but every year he’d ever worked for him. That’s how big that book was. But he said at the same time that the book was going crazy, his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. And not too far from that time, his son, struggling with depression, ended up committing suicide. Rick Warren, one of the best known pastors in the nation. So Pastor Rick, after that would talk about, well, life is not mountaintops and valleys. The Christian life is like a railroad track where you’ve got good things and bad things. Two rails and the trains on both of those all the time. That makes a lot of sense. You see, your Christian life is not going to just be filled with only good things and answers to prayers all the time so that you can say, yeah, God’s good. I’m good. I’ve got a great thing going. Let’s just keep chugging away. It makes for a good sermon. You see, here’s Nicodemus and he’s not understanding. He’s coming with the heart of a child. He wants to understand. But if I could just take verse four and say, sometimes that’s a season of your Christian life. It’s not just, I don’t understand an answer to this question. It’s a season of your Christian life where God is up to things you don’t even understand or know about. He’s working to grow you. He’s put you in a greenhouse. He’s put you in a special situation where he’s maybe testing you and trying you. He’s allowing things to come into your life. Why? Because he wants you to perceive and understand the things of heaven and he wants you to grow spiritually. He wants me to grow spiritually. See Jesus never leaves us the way he finds us. When we come to the Lord, and I’ve seen this so many times for new believers, we come to the Lord and it’s as if God does answer every prayer. I’ve seen that. New believers, they’re so excited for the Lord. Jesus is answering their prayers. The Bible is jumping off the page and speaking to them and they are just growing and growing and growing and growing. And I love seasons like that. And even for more mature believers, you’ve been walking with the Lord for decades. God will give you those seasons where it just seems like the growth is just coming easy. And then God will allow something to come into your life and growth is going to happen but it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be difficult. You’re going to have to work through anger. You’re going to have to work through you’re upset with God because something’s not working like you thought it would. Here’s Nicodemus. He doesn’t get it. And it’s an example to many times in our Christian journey of faith that we’re just not going to get what God is up to. But friends, you have to remember, God still has you in the palm of his hand. That’s what the word says. Whether I understand what God’s doing or I don’t understand what God’s doing, if we’ll just keep going, running back to Jesus with a heart of trust and the heart of a child and humility and surrender, God still has you in his hand. It may be hard right now, but it won’t be hard forever. God will bring you into a new season. How can someone be born when they’re old? Nicodemus asked, surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born. See, Nicodemus is thinking of physical birth, but Jesus is talking about spiritual birth. Jesus is teaching Nicodemus that if you want to understand the things of God, if you want to be a part of the kingdom of God, if you want to have a relationship with Father God, you’ve got to be born again, born anew by the spirit of God. This is one of the most powerful teachings of the New Testament, regeneration. Our God is a creator God, and he’s into Genesis and re-Genesis, amen? He’s into creation and re-creation. Our God is a God who when you get in touch with him and he gets in touch with you, he starts renovating your life. He starts regenerating your life. Things don’t remain the same. Things begin to change. If two people who are married together start walking with Jesus, things are going to begin to change. You’re going to change in your heart, in your mind. Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, and I’ll just read verse 2. I think we know this passage of scripture. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good and pleasing and perfect will. Are you allowing the spirit of God to be at work in your life so that you’re changing and you’re renewing and you’re being regenerated and you’re being re-created into the image of God in Christ Jesus in your life? Friends, that’s the power of the gospel in your life today. Not just to change your circumstance. We can preach on that. We will. Not just to change what’s going on in the nation. Not just to change what’s going on in the world. I’m so thankful for intercessory prayer. I believe in the power of prayer that when we pray, we align ourselves with the purposes of God and we join up with Jesus in what he’s wanting to accomplish in our church, in our home, in our community, in our world. And I’m thankful that we can pray and believe that circumstances will change. But what Nicodemus was learning here about salvation and spiritual growth and the kingdom was that what really needs to change is you and me. And what the spirit of God is really doing in our church and in our homes and in our lives is he’s changing us. He’s regenerating us. We can go to Romans 12, 2. We can go to Ephesians 4, 22 through 24. The Bible, the New Testament is filled with scriptures of how the word of God and the spirit of God enters into our lives and the word is planted in us like a seed and it begins to grow. And the spirit works with the word and it begins, the word begins to regenerate our mind the way we think. The spirit with the word begins to regenerate our heart, our attitudes, our passions, our loves, our motivations. Lord, do that in me today. Change me. Regenerate me. Renew me, oh Lord. Too often I don’t understand. I’m with Nicodemus, I don’t understand what God’s doing, but I do want to be like a child and say, Holy Spirit, come. Come into my life. Word of God, come into my life and change me and help me to be the person that you want me to be. Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. So you can’t work your way into the kingdom of God. You can’t be good enough to have a relationship with God. You can’t be religious enough. You can’t just go to church and say, well, I went to church every Sunday for the last 30 years. Surely I’m a Christian. I want to be very careful how I say this, but very direct. If you don’t sense the Holy Spirit at work in your life today, friend, please cry out to God. Please fall on your face at an altar at home or in church and seek God until you know that the Holy Spirit of God is enlivening you, awakening you so that you could understand the word so that you can have a genuine relationship with the Lord. It’s not enough to be religious. It’s not enough to be a good person. It’s not enough that your dad or your mom is a deacon or a pastor or an elder in the church. It’s not enough. Jesus said, unless you’re born again. A third inconvenient truth is salvation requires faith. In other words, the spirit is what begins this process of salvation and spiritual growth. But we also have a role to play. And I want to kind of skip over a few verses and we’ll come back to a few, but let’s look at verses 16 through 18 and we all know John 3, 16, but let me read the two verses that follow as well. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Wow. Love the heart of God here that’s expressed in verse 17. God’s heart is to save. God’s heart is to rescue. God’s heart is to deliver. But look with me at verse 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only son. You see, it matters what we believe. We can’t just sort of wake up one day and find ourselves in the kingdom of God. We have to choose to believe. Now I believe that faith scripturally, the Bible tells us that faith is the result of the grace of God. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, for by grace you’re saved through faith and it’s not of works. It’s a gift of God. Well, what’s the gift? Well, the gift is the grace of God that comes into your life and that grace begins to produce faith. And I want to encourage you this morning, if you have faith in God, just a little bit the size of a mustard seed, we should be shouting hallelujah and say, thank you Jesus, because you know what? That faith is not natural. That faith came from God. God put that faith in your heart. And so every time I have faith and say God, and my heart just keeps turning to God and every time the Holy Spirit convicts me, Tom, you can’t live that way like everybody else. You can’t think like everybody else thinks. Every time the Holy Spirit convicts me, I respond to that conviction. But then I also say, thank you, Jesus, because God’s working in my life. So grace is the gracious work of God in Jesus Christ in our life. And faith is the result. Faith is the result of that. And what John 3, 16, 17 and 18 reminds us is that we have a part to play in what God is doing in our life. It all starts with the spirit of God and the grace of God calling us and drawing us into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. But we have to respond by faith. I want to turn to Philippians chapter three, verse 12. This is one of my favorite passages where Paul gives us a beautiful word picture, Philippians 3, 12, a beautiful word picture of what it looks like to have faith. And if you’re like me, you’re saying, yeah, pastor, what does faith look like? Well, we could go to Hebrews 11 and we could read all about the heroes of faith. But I think Philippians chapter three, verse 12 does a good job of helping us to understand what faith looks like. Here’s what Paul writes, not that I have already obtained all this, Paul has just been talking about wanting to know Christ and the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. And then he says, not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to do what? To take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. This is the word picture I was talking about. So you’ve got Paul recognizing Jesus has taken hold of Paul’s life. But what’s Paul doing? He’s taking hold of Jesus. Friends, that’s what entering the kingdom of God looks like. That’s what, that’s what living in the kingdom looks like. That’s what’s walking. That is what walking with Jesus looks like. God by his grace takes a hold of your life and he puts faith in your heart and he gives you the spirit so that you can walk by the spirit and not gratify the lust of the flesh so that you can walk by the spirit, not live a selfish life, but you can live a life of service and a life for God and you can live a life that’s pleasing to him. And what Paul is expressing here in Philippians 3.12, just as God is grabbing a hold of me, I’m going to grab a hold of him. Friends, that’s faith. That’s faith. A fourth inconvenient truth is salvation results in walking in the light. And I think why this might be inconvenient or why I’ve entitled, included it in this message as inconvenient is because some people want to just get saved and then just go live their life. Some people want to just, uh, you know, Hey, I, I’m good. I got saved. I got water baptized. I know some people at church and then they just go live their life. I am so thankful that God is very gracious. God is very long suffering. God is very patient, but God doesn’t save us and then leave us alone. God doesn’t birth us into his kingdom and then just leave us as a baby on our own. But God wants us to grow. God wants us to mature. God wants us to get in, in his greenhouse, which is the church where there’s God’s presence and there’s God’s promises and purposes. And there’s, there’s God’s people, the community, and we get into the church and, and that helps us to grow. Think with me just for a moment about a greenhouse. A greenhouse is what a gardener uses, right? So that when springtime is ready, the gardener is ready for spring. So many serious gardeners, not me, but many serious gardeners, they’ll go get a greenhouse because they’ve been planting gardens for a year and then they’ll get this greenhouse So they can go prepare little seeds and little seedlings in a special environment, right? Where they can control the heat, they can control the sunlight. Friends, that’s what the church can be in our lives. Because we’re living in a world that we weren’t designed for initially. Think about that. We’re living in a cursed creation. We were designed to live in, in the garden of Eden, in the presence of God. But because of sin and evil and disobedience and going our own way, we’re living in a cursed creation. We’re living in a world that doesn’t know God. We’re living in a world, it’s like a cactus trying to grow in a swamp. It’s not supposed to be. And so God gave us the church. God gave us Christian relationships. God gave us the family. God gave us our homes so that we could come together and build one another up in the faith and that God could use those relationships and help us grow and accelerate our growth and maximize our growth. Now, I want to remind us, well, now I’ll wait on that because it’s the fifth and last point. I’ll come to that in just a minute. Creation results in walking in the light. In other words, we can’t just get saved and go our own way. We come into the kingdom and as Jesus is the light, we become the light. We begin to walk in the light. And the New Testament is clear, Jesus is the light of the world. But he also says, you’re the light. You are a reflection of me in this world. And so now that we have the spirit of God at work in our life, we can walk in the light. And I want to encourage you, if you look at these verses, one of the, if you go back to John 3, look with me at verse 19, one of the sad things about our world today is our world prefers darkness. You see, the Bible is true. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Church, walk in the light. Set up as many opportunities as you can to walk in the light because there’s something about our flesh, there’s something about the culture of this world that loves the darkness. The spirit loves the light, so walk in the light and the spirit will help you do that. A fifth inconvenient truth, and we’ll wrap up with this, a fifth inconvenient truth is spiritual growth accelerates in a greenhouse. And I think I was already getting there in my preaching. You see, we’re living in a curse creation. God didn’t intend for us to live in this world, so he sets up for us greenhouses. A greenhouse for you could be an accountability partner as a man who just, you just pray with once a week. A greenhouse could be getting together in the women’s ministry with other women. A greenhouse should certainly be your family at home. The church is here as a greenhouse for you because the day is going to come, and I believe there’s seasons in life, and I’ve already been preaching about it, where God will have you in a greenhouse for a certain level of growth to accelerate your growth, but then he will allow you, he will set you outside that greenhouse into an evil, dark, difficult world and you’ll face trouble. You’ll face trial. You go through sickness or disappointment or grief. And even those things, God is using to grow your faith. Even those things. You see, we need, well, let me read Psalms, well, you can see it there, but let me read Psalms 1-3. I wish I could see it on the board there. I’ll turn around. Psalms chapter 1 verse 3, that person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers. I love that. I have read that verse so many times. I love that. And I’ve said, Lord, let that be my life all the time. All the time, Lord. But do you know what that’s describing? That’s describing a greenhouse. What I’m trying to say is yes, there are seasons in your Christian life where God is going to plant you in his presence. He’s going to plant you in a special place and you’re going to grow and you’re going to flourish. And then there’s going to be other times where he allows you to go through things like Job went through or Joseph went through. Really all of the Bible characters, things that Jacob went through. God’s going to allow you to go through difficult things. And in both places, whether you’re planted by the streams of living water or you’re in a desert place, in both places, if we can just praise the Lord and give him thanks and say, Lord, do whatever you’ve got to do in me because I’m 100% sold out for you. I am surrendered. I am humbled. I am trusting you, Lord, to do what you need to do in my life because I want to grow. Someone asked the worship team to come. You know, sometimes as a pastor, it’d be a lot easier just for me to preach on in-time events and I want to do that soon. I’d love to do that, to preach on prophecy or to preach on the evils of this world or so many other things so that I didn’t have to just look at you and go, you know what? Here’s the message. The Holy Spirit wants you to change. The Holy Spirit wants you to grow. The Holy Spirit wants to do a work in your life. The Holy Spirit wants to do a work in my life. Sometimes that’s a little more difficult to preach because then the focus is on us. But I believe this series, God has a purpose for this series, the greenhouse effect. God loves you so much that even when we don’t understand what he’s doing, we can know that he has us in the palm of his hand. He’s got us where he knows we need to be and we just got to keep praising him. We just got to keep walking with him. We just got to keep getting into the word, getting into his presence, inviting his spirit into our life to change us and do the work that only he can do. And then you know what I found that happens in my life when I am able to be surrendered in those moments, then after I get through that, you know what tends to happen? God then changes circumstances along the way. But in the process, he’s trying to work on me. He’s trying to change who I am and who I’m becoming in the Lord. I want to lead us in prayer this morning. Would you stand with us? We’re going to worship the Lord, but I want to give you an opportunity to be like a child and to say, Lord, I’m going to come to you in humility, childlike trust and surrender. I want to give you that opportunity. Let me pray for you. Lord Jesus, thank you for each person that’s here today. And Lord, we hear your call that we would come to you like a child. And so we do that right now, Lord, we pray that you would move by your Holy Spirit in each heart and each life. Lord, you know, the areas that we need to grow, the times when we are faithless and we need to have faith. You know the weaknesses that we’re struggling with in our flesh, Lord, and we give those to you today so that we could live a life that is pleasing to you, that we can fully walk in the light. Lord, I pray that your anointing would be upon each person this morning to do the work that only you can do. Thank you for the message that you gave to Nicodemus and you give to us today that unless we’re born again, we can’t even see the things of God. We can’t understand the kingdom of God. Lord Jesus, we want to enter in and walk in the kingdom. Give us your spirit. Give us your spirit, Lord, we pray today. As you continue to pray, I want to give someone an opportunity here this morning to come into the kingdom. Maybe you’ve been attending the church for years. Maybe this is your first Sunday, but you’ve never surrendered your life to the Lord and something in the message this morning touched your heart. It’s the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is calling you to humble yourself, to trust Jesus and to surrender, to fully surrender to the Lord. If that’s you this morning, would you just by faith, lift up your hand, everyone else is praying. Lift up your hand and say, Lord Jesus, for the first time, I am surrendering my life to you. I’m surrendering my life to you. If the Holy Spirit is working in your life, you’ll know it. So don’t hesitate. Don’t hesitate. If the Holy Spirit is working in your heart right now, just raise that hand and say, yes, Lord Jesus, I surrender. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus. And then for all of us this morning, we’re going to take a moment and just worship the Lord. But I want to invite you to take a moment and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to areas of your life where you may need to change. You may need to grow. God is a good God. He’s faithful. He’s at work. He’s got you in the palm of his hand. So as we worship the Lord now, would you just take a minute and let the Lord speak to you? Thank you, Lord Jesus. I am Pastor Tom Ragsdell. I’m Pastor Ellis Benus. And we’re from Columbia First Assembly. We are a pentecostal church that’s on mission with Jesus. Our vision is simple. We want to make Jesus famous in your heart and in our community. Absolutely. Thank you so much for connecting with us online. We would also love to connect with you in person. We are located at 1100 North 7th Street, right in the heart of Columbia, Missouri, right across the street from Hickman High School. So if you’re in the central Missouri area and you’re looking for a home pentecostal church, come hang out with us. If you’re just connecting online and you’re nowhere near us, then please connect with us in the comments. If you have a prayer request, if you have a question, if you’re wondering anything about the Lord or Christianity, please let us know and we would be happy to engage with you in the comments. We believe God’s doing something special at our church and we want you to be a part of it. We’re a multi-generational, pentecostal church. We have people from all different backgrounds. We’re a pentecostal church of the word. We’re a pentecostal church of the spirit. We believe Jesus can transform your life. That’s why we’re on mission with Him and we want to help you know God. We want to help you grow in God and we want to share hope in our community. So connect with us and we want to connect with you. Awesome. Have a wonderful and a blessed day.