I believe that the event Easter celebrates is the most important event in world history. On Easter we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If the resurrection had not occurred, we would not be meeting here today. Nor would we remember Jesus Christ or have a New Testament. Without the resurrection, life would be incredibly more dark and evil than it is.
The resurrection of Jesus changed the world and it changed history. Every time you write a date, it is based on the resurrection. Easter split history into AD and BC. What happened on Easter still is changing things today. Easter is changing individual lives like mine and yours over 2000 years later. …
We’ve been looking at the ancient book of Esther as a model for how we should live for God in the world that God has put us into. Our world in the 21st century AD is a dark world, but so was the world of the Persian empire that Esther found herself in the 5th century BC.
Let’s review the story of Esther that we’ve covered so far. If you haven’t yet read the book of Esther, I encourage you to read it this week, it’s only ten chapters long. The setting of the book of Esther is the capital city of the Persian empire ruled over by King Xerxes. …
As believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, our purpose in life is to push back the darkness around us by allowing God’s light to shine through us. The brighter you shine for God, the more power God gives you so you can shine even more brightly. The problem is that some people who call themselves believers aren’t shining at all. They’re being overcome by the darkness, by the dark side that we talked about last Sunday. Jesus warned us of the problem. …
The Bible speaks of two kingdoms, the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. Every person is in one of those kingdoms or the other. No one can straddle the fence. Those two kingdoms are in conflict. There is a battle raging between these two kingdoms that has gone on since man was created.
What does that have to do with you? Whether we like it or not, you and I are trapped in the war zone between these two kingdoms. In fact, we are either on one side or the other. …
Light is needed in dark places and the world today is a dark place. The Bible teaches that there are two kingdoms in conflict, the kingdom of light, God’s Kingdom and the kingdom of darkness, Satan’s kingdom. The results of the kingdom of darkness are violence, death, sickness and sin of all kinds. We see the kingdom of darkness in action in the news all the time. …
Today, we’re going to look at the topic of “Spiritual Growth”. This is the third foundation stone that we’re looking at in our message series “Five Foundations for Life.” What is spiritual growth all about? When a person becomes a new believer, whether you are 5 or 95, you begin as a spiritual infant. God’s purpose for every believer is that they grow to spiritual maturity. Just as God’s purpose for every baby is that they grow to adulthood, so His purpose is for every new believer to grow to spiritual adulthood.
Now, physical growth pretty much happens automatically, or so it seems. However, there are some requirements for physical growth. A child needs to eat right and learn a whole host of things to grow into a well-rounded productive adult. Regarding spiritual growth, many people think it happens automatically as well. People tend to measure spiritual maturity by how long a person has been a believer, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years and so on. But what does the Bible say?
Hebrews 5:12 (NIV) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
The first thing we can learn from this verse is that God desires every believer to mature to the point they can teach someone else about the truths of God. The second thing we learn is that this desired spiritual growth does not happen automatically. Spiritual growth had not happened for the people this book was written too. They were still spiritual infants, needing spiritual milk, rather than solid food. If spiritual maturity is not measured by how many years you’ve been a believer, how is it measured?
Hebrews 5:13-14 (NIV) Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
These verses show that a mature person understands the teaching about righteousness, that is God’s Word. Not only does a mature person understand the Bible, they have applied it to their lives. A mature person has trained themselves to doing the right things in life.
Today, our topic is Spiritual Growth. We’re going to be looking at how you can accelerate your spiritual growth and grow towards spiritual maturity. Every foundation that we’ll be talking about in this series is important for spiritual growth. However, today, I’m going to talk about how God’s Word can bring about spiritual growth and maturity.
2 Timothy 3:16 (NLT) All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
That’s a good verse to memorize this week. It’s one of our action steps on the back of your Connect Card. The Bible is essential to growing spiritually. The start of the New Year 2010 is a great time to pursue God’s goal for your life of spiritual growth.
Listen to my January 17, 2010 message “Spiritual Growth” (message-notes).
