Making 2025 the Best Year of your Spiritual Life

In Colossians, chapter two Colossians chapter two and I really believe that 2025 can be the greatest year of spiritual growth in your life.

Now, some of y'all are thinking you're supposed to say that you're a pastor, but honestly, I think 2025 can be the greatest year of spiritual growth in your life if you'll have the rhythms in your life, if you'll have the rhythms in your life that will allow spiritual growth to happen.

Here's what we want to do in our time in the Word this morning is we want to equip you and share with you how we want to walk alongside you in 2025 to help you grow deeper than ever before in your faith.

I was reminded of the importance of rhythms last year.

In 2024, I was.

You guys know I like to work out.

In 2024, some of y'all think I work out like every day of my life.

I promise I don't.

I work out like three or four days a week.

In 2024, I was.

I went.

I entered into this fitness competition, not because I wanted to.

In 2023, there had been a couple of fitness competitions I had entered into and they were fun and I was actually able to win them.

It was awesome.

2024, though, this competition had a lot better athletes, a lot better people in really good shape.

And the reason why I didn't want to enter into this competition is because I didn't want to lose.

You know what I'm saying Competitive people.

I'm like, oh, I don't want to lose, but I got some friends that man, some knuckleheaded friends.

You know, I don't know if you have any knuckleheaded friends In fact, are you sitting next to no, don't raise your hand.

And I got some friends that were like, hey, bro, like you should be in this competition, like you can do it.

But you know, I was like okay, so I like entered a competition or whatever.

Now I knew if I was going to have any chance of like competing in this competition, I was going to have to up my workout game Like one hour a week, three to four days a week.

That just ain't happening.

Like that's not going, no.

So I knew that what I needed to do was work out like at least a couple hours a day, probably like four or five days a week.

But here's the deal I didn't do that.

Why?

It's just us, we're just family in here, because I'm lazy.

That's the first reason.

The second reason this is kind of legitimate is I was a little bit busy.

So I'm like you know I'm busy, I'm kind of lazy.

You go to the gym, you work out for an hour.

Who wants to do another workout after that?

Not this guy, right?

So then the day of the competition came and I'm driving to the comp and I'm reconsidering my life, like why did I do this?

I'm going to embarrass myself, right.

So the day of the competition came.

There was like five workouts in one day.

If you want to know what that feels like, it's human torture.

That's human torture.

So we have five different workouts and at the end of the day, yes or no.

Do you think I won?

I love that.

Whoever said that believes in me.

You're so gracious.

No, I didn't win.

In fact, we have a picture of the podium here.

I got in second place.

No, no, no, no, no.

My competitive people in the room know that.

That just means I was the first loser.

That's true, I was the first loser.

So thank you for congratulating me for being the first loser in this competition.

All right, so the guy in the top of the podium right, he's the guy that won.

The guy in the middle Stinking knucklehead?

No, I'm just kidding.

We were actually really close, like we were close and I was like man, he's a super nice guy.

I was like dude.

I was like tell me, like what did you do to prepare for the competition?

You know what I mean?

Like what was it?

And he said well, it's pretty simple, just work out six days a week of my life, just six days a week.

And I'm like this, sir, is why you are on the top of the podium and I am not on the top of the podium.

And I was reminded of this this bro had the rhythms it took to win the comp.

Me, I did not have the rhythms it took to win the comp.

To win the comp, he was committed to the rhythms.

He won the comp.

I was not.

And in 2025, if we will be committed to the rhythms it takes to grow spiritually, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter what you look like, doesn't matter where you're from.

If you'll just have the right rhythms in your life, you will grow spiritually in greater ways than you ever have before.

You can grow deeper in your faith than ever before, and here's why I unapologetically want you to grow deeper in your faith than ever before in your life.

It's because, when you grow deeper in your life.

Your hope increases, your perspective on life, circumstances change.

When you have that trial in your life, it's going to hit differently than when you're not as deep.

You'll have more peace in your life.

You'll become more aware of God's presence when and if you grow deeper in your faith.

We get to a place of scripture in Colossians where these people knew that Jesus was a very important guy.

In fact, if I were to ask you in the room who thinks Jesus is this very important guy, most of you guys would raise your hand right.

Some of y'all are raising up two hands right.

Yeah, he's just an important guy.

So they were kind of like us.

They thought that.

But something happened.

There's a problem.

I don't know if this ever happens to you.

They got distracted.

You ever gotten distracted in your life?

Some of y'all got ADD.

It's like you know we got ADD.

We're like a squirrel right, that's me.

You live in distraction.

These people had gotten distracted and because they had gotten distracted, they had been swept away into all these other things.

And Paul writes the people at Colossians, the people at Colossians, a people at Colossians, a letter.

He's like no, no, no, no, no, you've gotten distracted.

And then he gives them a challenge that we're going to see today.

Here's the challenge.

Here's the challenge Be rooted and built up in your faith, rooted and built up in your faith.

Be rooted and built up not in everything that's happening in the world, because it's crazy right now, but to be rooted and built up in your faith, specifically in Christ, because when you are rooted and you're built up in Christ and you grow deeper in your faith than ever before, you're gonna see God do more in your life than ever before, you're going to have more peace than ever before, you're going to have more hope than ever before and your perspective on life will change.

So we're going to pick it up in Colossians, chapter 3, and we're going to see how this unfolds.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

If you're ready for the word, would you say amen.

Colossians 3, verse number 1.

Colossians 3, verse number 1.

I love it.

I just want to say this too.

It's usually I don't get sick.

Very often I very rarely get sick.

But yesterday I woke up and like I had a little something, something going on in my voice.

You guys tell, I got something in my voice.

And I woke up this morning and it was like even worse.

And I'm not the guy that's like the devil's under every rock.

You know, like it was the devil.

Sometimes I'm like, no, bro, you just made bad choices, that wasn't the devil.

But I just can't help but think like this is a really big Sunday for us, as we've been praying and literally like fasting getting ready for today.

So I just can't help but think that there might be some type of like spiritual warfare a little bit here.

I'm going to try to get through this message, so bear with me.

Colossians, chapter 2, verse number 1.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

This is what Paul writes.

He says I want you to know how greatly I'm struggling for you.

He's burdened for these people.

He loves them, for those in Laodicea and for all who have not seen me in person.

These people had not seen Paul in person yet.

I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love so they may have all the riches of what's that word?

All the riches of Complete understanding, and have the knowledge of God's mystery, christ.

To have a complete understanding of Christ.

To have a complete understanding of Christ, not just know a part about him, not just know some of him, but have a complete understanding.

In fact, some of us, we have knowledge about Jesus.

In fact, can somebody tell me something that Scripture tells us that we know about Jesus, something that we know?

He's love?

Yeah, he's love.

Yes, he's God.

He died for us, absolutely.

Something else we know about Jesus we've seen in Scripture he walked on water.

That's right, he walked on water.

He's a teacher that's right, he's a teacher.

Turned water into wine.

He was born a virgin.

That's right.

These are all things about Jesus.

But could it be that we know some things about Jesus?

But could it be that there are some things that we don't know about Jesus?

Could it be that maybe we know some things here about Jesus, but they haven't dropped down 18 inches to our hearts and we haven't embraced them?

And could it be that we're at a place in our life where we're like, yeah, like I know a lot about Jesus, like I'm good, like I know things about him, but could it be that we're missing out on knowing so much more If we would grow a little deeper?

It reminds me of this when I was a kid, there was a fast food place that I really, really loved.

It had golden arches.

Any guesses?

What's the place I'm talking about?

Oh, mcdonald's, right, mcdonald's.

When I was a kid.

Let me just tell you right now, mcdonald's is number one.

If my parents are like, hey, we'll take you to any steakhouse, any restaurant in the world, any sushi place, I'm like why would I go there?

I'm going to McDonald's.

You know what I mean For my birthday.

Guess where I wanted to go?

Of course, why would I not want to go to McDonald best, so, I don't care, I want McDonald's.

But then something happened.

I grew up and matured and I tasted something Another hamburger that starts with an N as in in and out.

I had an in and out cheeseburger and my life, ladies and gentlemen, my life was forever changed.

You know what I'm saying.

Can I get a witness in here?

Yes, okay, I mean, come on, right, we about to have some church in here, right?

So I taste the In-N-Out burger.

Life changed forever.

Here's the deal.

You ask seven-year-old little Nate.

You think I'm little.

Now I was real small when I was seven years old.

You show little Nate, like the best thing ever is McDonald's, this is the best.

Like I'm good, I'm fine, give me my Happy Meal and give me my little toy too.

But now that I've matured and I've grown, I'm like I was missing out on a lot and I didn't even know what I was missing out on.

Missing out on a lot and I didn't even know what I was missing out on.

And could it be for some of us, when it comes to our faith, maybe we're not at the McDonald's place, but maybe we're a step or two here and there's so much more over there, and maybe there's a tri-tip steak over there.

Come on, and maybe there's some more great stuff over there.

But here's the thing it's only gonna get there as we make the decision to grow deeper and learn more of Christ.

This is why Paul says I want you to have a complete understanding, a complete understanding.

This is so vital because verse three this is what Paul says.

Paul says in him, in Christ is known, is hidden, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

That it's in Christ.

It's not in all these philosophies, like wisdom and knowledge is not in having this incredible knowledge of politics.

No, it is in Christ.

And he says I'm telling you this, I'm saying this so that no one will what's that word?

No one will deceive you with arguments.

That sounds reasonable.

Now I can't help but think that if Paul was writing in 2025, he would say I am saying that no one will deceive you with arguments from their TikTok videos or from their Instagram reels or from their podcasts, or from the talking heads on the news or from your favorite celebrity.

He says I'm saying this so no one will deceive you.

Verse 5, for I may be absent in body, but I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are.

This means that the church they were like, very organized in how they did things.

They were organized, they were well-ordered, they were structured and the strength of your faith in Christ.

So these people had a strong faith in Christ.

It wasn't like these were something that people that didn't have a strong faith in Christ.

They had a strong faith in Christ.

So then, verse six just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him.

When it says, receive Christ as Lord, this is what that means.

That means they realized that they were a sinner.

They needed Christ.

They turned from their sin, they put their faith and trust in Jesus and they said Lord Jesus, you're going to be the Lord of our lives Like we're.

You are in control of us.

This is what it means to follow Jesus.

Just as you've received him, continue to walk in him, so, like you've received him as your Lord, but walk in his teaching, walk in his ways, walk in his plans, walk in what he wants.

Then he gets to verse 7, and he gives him this challenge being rooted and built up in him.

Can we say that underlined part together, verse 7, ready, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.

Just as you were taught, so you were taught the truth of who Jesus is.

You were taught the scripture.

This is what you were taught, and just as you were taught that you need to grow in that and what's going to happen, you will overflow with what's that word you'll overflow with.

Now I love what the NLT and we don't just love, but I love how the NLT translates verse 7.

The NLT says this.

It says let your roots grow deep down into him that him is Christ and let your lives be built on him.

Your lives be built on him, your lives be built on Christ.

How many of you understand, you can build your life on a lot of things.

You can build your life on your emotions.

You can build your life on your trauma.

You can build your life on money.

You can build your life on having a success, whatever.

However you define that, you can build your life on a lot of things.

This is what they say Go back, let your life be built on Christ, then your faith will grow strong In the truth you were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness.

So when you build your life on truth, then you're going to grow when you build your life on him.

Now, this is why we need to be very aware and intentional to do this, because verse number eight says we can be deceived.

Be careful, be careful, be careful.

You ever had your kid do something and maybe they were like handling something.

You're like be careful with that.

You need to be careful.

You walk down a dark alley at night, especially if you're a lady.

You're kind of like careful, kind of like looking around.

You got like your little pepper spray thing or something.

Get your keys, you're ready to step.

Be careful, be careful that no one takes you captive, captive, hold on to you, put you in bondage.

How?

Philosophy?

And to deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world rather than Christ.

Okay, what in the world do these words mean?

Let's break them down, just for fun, so we understand what we read Philosophy.

This is what philosophy is.

It's general thought patterns and belief systems out there, and there's a lot of different thought patterns and belief systems out there.

So thought patterns, belief systems that are outside of the ways of Christ, vain deceit.

This just means things that are empty, things that do not hold water, human traditions, things that have been formulated from people and there's nothing wrong with things that have been formulated from people.

What is wrong is when somebody elevates their human traditions over the scripture.

That's the problem, right?

There's nothing wrong with, maybe, fcc, like there's some certain ways that maybe we do certain things that aren't biblical.

When I say they aren't biblical, like the Bible doesn't clearly say that Pastor Nate should preach for 31 minutes, or whatever I do on Sunday.

It doesn't say you should have three.

It doesn't say that.

And if we were to say, no, the Bible says a pastor should not preach more than 31 minutes, you should not have more than three worship songs.

You know, right, it's not like that.

So what I'm saying is there are environments and there are groups where they hold human traditions, which there's nothing wrong with human traditions but they hold them over the word of God and they're taken captive by them, and there's nothing wrong with saying this is what we think, but this is not biblical right?

So, being captive by human traditions, it goes on.

He talks about the elements of the world.

This is not talking about people.

This is talking about the world's ideas and morals and value systems that are contrary to the way of Jesus.

These are things that will distract and pull you away from Christ.

And here's what I think most of us know, but some of you don't know, and this is what you got to know.

This is, the enemy is constantly trying to distract you and deceive you.

The enemy is constantly trying to distract you and deceive you.

How does he do it?

We just read in verse number verse seven, verse eight the philosophy vain, deceit, human traditions, elements of the world.

That's what he does.

And here's what he doesn't do.

The enemy doesn't come to you and say, hey, I am trying to deceive you right now.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make good look evil and evil look good, because I trying to deceive you right now.

So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make good look evil and evil look good, because I want to deceive you, and I hope you buy into this lie right here.

He doesn't say, hey, hey, I want to put you on a path that's really gonna destroy your life.

So in like five, 10 years from now, you're gonna look back and be like what did I do?

I destroyed my life.

He doesn.

He makes things look appeasing, he makes things look tempting, he makes things look alluring.

In fact, this is what it says in 2 Corinthians.

It says no wonder, for Satan disguises himself as an angel of what's that word in the angel of Light, light.

So it is no great surprise that his servants also disguised themselves as servants of righteousness.

It's like this, it's like somebody that claims to follow Jesus but doing things clearly outside of scripture.

But they think I'm good, I'm okay, it's fine, it's not a big deal, you know what it is.

It's deception.

It's deception and the enemy is a deceiver and he's constantly trying to distract and deceive you and we have to be people that understand that.

The world that we live in, yes, it's terrible, yes, it's chaos, and it's easy for us to be like I can't believe those people did that, I can't believe that's happening over there.

But me, I will never be deceived.

Me, I will never mess up Me.

I just I'm good.

Guys, we have to wake up and know this that life is not filled with roses, that there's a real enemy that's out to get us, that seeks to kill and steal and destroy.

That's what he does, that's what Not only does, and here's the deal.

We got to be people that know the word well enough, and I need to be a pastor that says thus saith the Lord, whether it's popular or unpopular, I need to care enough about your hearts and your soul that I will teach the truth.

Yeah, because there is a real enemy that deceives and a real enemy that distracts.

But there's also a choice that you can make and a choice that I can make.

A decision Now, this decision number two is not something that you can do for anybody else.

This isn't a decision that you can make for me.

This is a decision that you can make for a family member, and you might be in the room and you might have a family member that's been praying for you to make this decision.

This is the decision that you would be rooted and you would be built up and you would grow deeper.

It's a decision that only you can make.

It's imperative that we make this decision, but we got to grow, grow deeper.

I got this.

I brought something with me today just for fun.

You guys know I like bringing little things with me to church service, not just plant this tree.

Are there any people, anybody in the room, that knows what kind of plant tree this is gonna grow into?

If you know this, I'm super impressed with you.

Anybody know?

Hey guys, you're close.

A lime.

Who said lime?

Yeah, because he was at the 845 service.

He was at 845.

He's really smart.

This is a lime tree.

Now the thing about this lime tree is, if you look at it, are there any limes on this lime tree?

No, there's not.

It's too young, too young, too young.

This thing is supposed to grow.

When it's full size it's going to grow to 10 to 20 feet.

10 to 20 feet.

This thing is not 10 to 20 feet right now.

It's too young and it's too young.

And this thing is never going to reach maturity, it's never going to reach fruit-bearing stage until something happens, until it gets rooted into the ground, because that little pot that it's in is not going to allow it to get rooted.

As long as in that pot, it's not going to be able to produce fruit.

I mean, this thing grows 10, 20 feet, but if it gets rooted and it gets planted and it has the right rhythms, it has its water and those things sunlight, it has the power to produce enough fruit to give all of us limes for months.

Thousands of limes can come from that.

And here's what this plant is filled with Potential.

It's filled with potential.

And here's what your life is filled with potential Potential for what God can do in your life.

You guys think about a redwood tree, right?

You see the redwoods like oh, my goodness, they're amazing.

We take pictures, we doll ourselves.

Oh, I think the root system for a redwood tree is so deep and that's what allows them to grow so tall.

And here's what we want us to do this year we want us to grow deeper so we can grow taller.

So the last part of this message here's what I want to do.

I want to take a few minutes and I want to talk about our plan as a church to see this happen in our lives in 2025.

And I'll say this too, as your pastor I will give my blood, my sweat, my tears and my prayers to see this happen in your life.

Like we are not trying to be a church with a bunch of spiritual consumers to get a quick spiritual hit once or twice on a Sunday morning, but we want to be people that are deep, committed followers of Jesus, that are learning the scripture, that our lives are being transformed, that are seeing spiritual victories in our life.

So how do we want to see this happen?

First of all, something we've been talking about is Growing Deeper 40-Day Spiritual Growth Campaign.

That's what we're praying for.

The Growing deeper 40-day spiritual growth campaign is something that can allow you to have the rhythms in your life that will let you grow deeper.

40 in scripture is a number of testing or preparation, and I wonder what would happen if we, as a people, took the next 40 days to focus on God, if we said I'm gonna reschedule my life a little bit, if we said I'm gonna reorient my priorities a little bit.

What this campaign is gonna equip you with and you'll get a journal.

You can get it on a digital, editable one, online or you can grab one in the lobby with spiritual rhythms, with tools, with assignments.

That's to allow you to grow deeper.

Part of this is everybody that signs up for the Growing Deeper campaign.

You finish this campaign, you'll get a t-shirt at the end.

This is our heart.

Our heart is that you personally would say I want to grow deeper.

Next Sunday I'm going to begin a message series entitled Deeper Five decisions you must make to grow deeper in your faith.

Five rhythms you must have in your life to grow deeper in your faith.

We're going to do something in our groups we've never done before this coming semester.

We're going to experiment with something.

What we're going to do is we're going to have message discussion, questions in our groups that are based on the Sunday message.

So, as we're going to talk about a rhythm on Sunday in your different groups, you can discuss those and maybe in those groups you're like, yeah, that's a tough one for me, I don't know how I can do that.

Okay, let's talk about it, let's figure it out, and it's just going to be groups of 10 to 15 people that meet together to go deeper and ask ourselves how can we grow in our faith?

After we finish up this series in March, we're going to start a message series going through the gospel of John.

We're going to go chapter by chapter through the book of John learning about Jesus.

John's a biography about Jesus.

Who is he?

What did he do?

We're going to get to the spring semester of growth groups.

Coming up in the spring, we're going to have deeper Bible study groups.

We're talking about some of going a little deeper in the word and some Old Testament, some of these books of the Bible.

We're going to do that in the spring.

We're also going to have some skill-based growth groups that will equip you to better minister to other people, to grow deeper and being able to minister more effectively.

I know this as a pastor.

I want to be a better pastor.

I know this as a pastor.

I want to be able to minister to people more effectively.

But I have to learn how to do that and we have, I think, nearly 160 people that serve somewhere.

I know this that we want to grow and we want to get better in saying how can we serve other people better.

And we're going to have these skill-based growth groups talking about things like how do you be a spiritual leader?

How do you help people with their mental and emotional health?

How do you pray with people?

Emotional health how do you pray with people?

How do you lead a group?

How do you do these things?

Why are we doing it?

We just want to equip you.

We want to equip you to grow deeper, something we're doing in March.

We've never done this before.

We're going to do a half a day leadership event called LEAD.

This is all it's going to do.

We're going to have different workshops and different things happening.

It's just going to resource you and equip you.

So how can you grow deeper in your faith?

Because of the nature of this event, it's going to be limited space.

This is what we're going to do.

We just want to pour into you and we want to bring people from the outside speakers from the outside in our church this year.

That will help us grow deeper.

We're going to do something we've never done before this fall, which I am super, super excited about.

We are going to have a conference here at First Christian Church in yes, in September this year.

Try it.

We're going to have a guest speaker come in.

This conference will be an equipping, inspiring, empowering conference, why we want you to be able to minister to others more effectively.

Going back to groups, we're going to add another layer to our groups.

Right now, we have growth groups, which are groups that meet around a specific study or topic.

We have community groups, which meet around a shared interest or activity.

We're going to have something called deeper groups.

These are going to be groups that meet together to go deeper in discipleship, in relationships, through accountability questions.

So it'll be a group of three to five people that just meet together and just walk through hey, how are you doing your Bible reading?

What's the temptation that you're facing?

We all face temptations.

What's the struggle you're having?

We all have struggles, and you can just share and grow deeper in relationships through that.

I want to end with this story.

There was a guy in the 1800s.

His name was Evan Roberts.

Evan Roberts lived in Wales.

At the age of 13, late in the 1800s, he made the decision to turn from his sin, put his faith and trust in Jesus and follow Jesus.

Now, he did not come from a prominent family.

He came from a poor family.

In fact, he had to go to work with his dad.

He worked.

His dad worked in the coal mines in Wales, but as he was following Jesus, he made this decision that I just want to focus on him and you want to go home at night.

He's a teenager.

A teenager Spend time in the word, spend time in prayer.

As he became a young adult, god was stirring things in his heart.

This guy was not a stereotypical, like pastor type.

You may see that and you're like, oh yeah, he looks like a pastor.

He is not a stereotypical pastor.

He was not a pastor, but God was stirring something in him.

He's like man.

The church where I'm a part of and in the area there's a lot of teenagers and he was a young adult.

There's a lot of teenagers that there's like nothing for them, like we need to have something for them so they can come and hear the gospel and and Jesus can change their life.

So they had this service that he put together and there was him.

And then there was this other young adult girl and she talked, she gave this testimony about how the love of Jesus changed her and how Jesus changed her life.

And something happened in that service that literally is unexplainable.

In fact, over a hundred years later, people are still writing about the movement that started from that service.

In that service, a room full of teenagers decided that they were going to commit to just focus on God, and history, secular history, tells us, in the small city of Wales, 150,000 people over a 12-month period decided to turn from their sin, put their faith and trust in Jesus and follow him, and it's all traced back to that service.

In fact, a few years after this, it started something called the Welsh Revival.

A few years after this a local newspaper, not a Christian newspaper.

They wrote about what happened in the community.

They said this they said the whole population had been suddenly stirred by a common impulse Religion had become the absorbing interest of their lives.

They gathered at crowded services for six and eight hours at a time.

Political meetings and even football matches were postponed.

Quarrels between trade union workmen and non-unionists had been made up.

The public houses these are the bars became practically empty.

Bridges and walls, instead of being covered with obscene remarks, were now covered with lines from the Bible and the hymn book.

The streets echoed with hymns rather than the drunkard songs.

Because one person, evan Roberts, said I'm just going to focus on God.

One person and God sprang a movement from that.

And we cannot determine if God is going to spring a movement through our lives.

We can't do that.

Only God can do that.

But what we can do is we can say I'm going to focus on God.

What we can do is we can say I'm going to grow deeper.

What we can say is I'm going to put away distractions and I'm going to say, in 2025 or the next 40 days, I'm going to grow deeper and we can say, lord, this is who we are.

Like, you have all of us.

We don't know what you can do, but we just want to focus on you, we want to spend time in your word, we want to pray.

Lord, do your work in us and through us.

And here's my question Like, where are like, honestly, where are the Evan Roberts of First Christian Church?

Like, where are the Evan Roberts that are like Lord, I just want you.

And if we have that heart and we have that belief and we just have that focus, man, who knows what God can do?

So let's do it, guys, family.

Let's do it Like let's take these next 40 days and say, man, I'm just gonna focus on God, I'm gonna go deeper.

Let's take 2025 and say you know.