Deep In Christ

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And I'm so glad that you're here and uh our guests, and thank you for being here.

I must have greeted 10 new families in the lobby today, so praise God for that.

It is exciting.

And uh we have a really special guest here today.

Where's Joe sitting at?

Joe, anybody see Joe?

Joe's mother is here, and I just wanted to say thank you for being here today with us.

We're excited about that.

Turn your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

In July of this year, uh, or this past year, I had a couple of days sabbatical planning a sermon calendar, and I knew God made it real apparent that in the beginning of the year we were going to the book of Joshua, we were gonna do the burn the boats to start off the year and move forward.

And then God gave me something else, and then he took it away.

So about mid-February, God began speaking to me, just changing the plan that I thought I had.

You gotta understand me for a second.

I almost never in 15 years canceled a youth event.

Um, when I think my plan is set, I've thought through things and I've wrestled with things, and I usually have talked it over with Heather, and she's giving it the stamp, and it's set for me.

And so when God started doing this, I'm like, God, it's okay if you would have verified this in July, but I've got a plan.

And so, anyhow, God began to just work on that, and here's where he took me.

In Colossians 1, 9 through 14, in about 2021, Heather, she came across this verse and it became the family prayer.

And as we read through it, it's a prayer that we began to pray and recite over our family, and then we began to uh put that into friends of ours and other families and praying specifically the words of this prayer.

And God was like in my spirit saying, the family prayer.

And so uh anyway, this past Monday, Pastor Dave and I went to a conference in Gadsden, and um, you know, I don't know why God would change all that, but it felt like certain that he did.

And we go to the conference, and the first speaker gets up and he said, I want you to turn your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

I thought, okay.

God is giving some affirmation to what he wants us to do.

And uh I want you to look at Colossians 1.28, just as a jump in, sort of where this preacher took us on Monday.

And this is what he said, Colossians 1.28.

He said, Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we present every man mature in Christ Jesus.

And what he told us was God does not measure ministry success by great buildings.

And man, we've got some great buildings, we've got great property.

But he said, God doesn't measure ministry success by great buildings, beautiful buildings, places of worship.

God doesn't measure ministry success by how many people are attending your churches, he told us.

He said, God doesn't measure ministry success by having a really big ministry budget, because people are giving.

And as he's speaking, he went to this verse and he says, This God absolutely mandates ministry success is that every believer is presented before God as maturing.

And he said something, he took us to Hebrews chapter 13, 17, and he says in Hebrews, that every man or every pastor will give an account for the way that he led his church.

Hebrews 13 · chapter mention

And it's a terrifying thing to think, but I want you to understand, God wants us as a church to get deeper.

In Matthew 28, 19, he says, go, and listen, everybody takes this as the great commission to go and reach people for Christ.

And that is right.

We need to evangelistically get, look, and I'm that that's my lean.

I'm telling you, that's my lean.

I want everybody and I think we're the best.

I want everybody to know it, and we got Jesus to give.

So everywhere I go, I'm like, please come to my church.

I love it, and I love you, and I love that you love it.

But he says, go and make disciples.

That means he wants us more than a surface level.

And so he says that I'm gonna give an account one day, all pastors, not for how many, but for how we feed sheep.

Success is how you're growing and going to the next level in God's Word.

So I have a question for you today.

God wants you to be a disciple.

Do you consider yourself a disciple?

There was an old book that was written by Kyle Eidelman called Fan, Follower, or Fake.

Are you a fan of Jesus?

Do you come and show up once in a while, sort of faking it, or are you all in a full court follower?

I was thinking about this.

Um, the deep end came to me.

The deep end.

Well, I'm not a great swimmer.

Anybody here like me, not a great swimmer?

My people?

Okay?

I'm not a good swimmer.

I can't recall ever taking a swimming lesson.

I can't recall a parent teaching me to swim.

I guess I just ended up in pools and stayed alive.

Um I'm not a great swimmer, but I am adventurous.

If there's a diving board, I want to jump off it.

I like swan diving, I like front flipping, I like back flipping, I love all that stuff.

I've jumped off a 75-foot cliff into water.

I love those things.

And I I tell you that to say, all of it has only happened in the deep end.

At about 21, I almost lost my life swimming in a lake.

And I was heading over to a rope swing on the other side so I could jump off this side of this cliff and have adventure.

And I have I thought about that.

Have I stayed away from water because I'm not really a great swimmer?

Not a chance.

Have I stopped taking big jumps?

No.

If we go to a pool today, I'm gonna find a kid to jump over them and do some crazy stuff because that's the fun for me.

And here's what God told me some people will spend their whole life in the shallow end filled with excuses for why they never got deep.

It's not okay, church, waiting in two feet Christianity when God wants to take you much deeper.

Can we pray?

Father, we love you, and I pray that this message, Lord, that you would draw our hearts to the needfulness.

Lord, if there are people in this room today, there's no doubt you are calling them to depth.

God, we have this one life to live, this one chance to do it right.

So, God, I pray that you would draw people to uh deeper richness in their walk with you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Look at Colossians 1, verse 9.

Colossians 1:9

1 verse 9.

The first point this morning is this filled Christianity.

1 verse 9, we're gonna hit verse 9 a couple of different times, but it says, for this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled.

I want you to pause there, that we would be filled.

Christianity, the act of becoming a Christian, is an act of filling.

Acts 1.8, we talked about last week, was about the filling of the Holy Spirit that comes upon a person.

So I brought out here, I told him I'd call him out.

Where's Samuel?

Samuel Hibbs, first time I seen this was done in a teen night, and it was really a great visual.

But he was talking about what our life is like.

This is our life previous to Christ.

It's full, and it's full of the flesh.

These black ping pong balls represent our flesh.

And so when a person calls on Christ, now remember, post-resurrection, he said, I'm sending that comforter to you, and the Holy Spirit fell in Acts 1 on every believer.

And when it comes on a person, all of it, every bit of the Holy Spirit is available to us at that moment.

Y'all hear me now.

Every bit of the Holy Spirit.

It's not like we get half now, half later, we get a bogo, nothing.

Okay, we get all of the Holy Spirit, but we still have a flesh.

And so we must then fill with the Holy Spirit that we have access to.

And the Bible uses the Holy Spirit, a picture of the Holy Spirit as water throughout Scripture.

And he says that when you fill, I want you to see sort of what happens when you fill with the Holy Spirit.

When you begin to fill daily and do your devotions daily, you see, the flesh side of you starts falling to the side.

And as you fill more and more with the Holy Spirit, you know what?

You know it's not deep anymore?

That sin rooting isn't deep like it used to be because you're filling.

I'm getting up, I'm reading the word.

You know it's real hard to be angry and spicy with my family when I've got the Holy Spirit battling for me, and I've been praying for them by name and calling out to God, and I didn't get enough water, but you see the picture, and so we just get rid of all that old flesh, and we're full and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Thank you, Samuel.

But we're filled, and it says a prayer, letter A, a prayer for God's will.

Uh filled with what is the question.

A prayer, Paul says, that you be filled seeking the knowledge of God's will.

Well, when we determine God's will in our life, many people approach it like it's this magical discovery.

It's up in the heavens, and we can grasp for it.

And one day, preacher, I just hope to find God's will for my life.

And when you're a teenager going into Christian college, you you hope that you find her, uh, God's will for your life in Christian college, and you're seeking this magical thing.

And I did, in fact, find that, but his will is less about discovery and more about discerning.

Well, how do we discern, Pastor?

Tell me about that.

Discernment is about gathering data, gathering information, and applying that information.

Well, where do we do that, Pastor?

The Greek word is this, it's spelled this way: B-O-O-K.

In English, it's called the Bible.

The Greek word for how do we discern God's will is the Bible.

And there's there's at least five times, I say it's not some magical discovery, discerning.

God specifically, at least five times, calls out his will in the Bible.

I want you to see these verses.

And so they should come up on the screen for you, if not.

The first one is 1 Timothy 2, 3 through 4.

It says, For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all men to be saved.

God's will, first of all, foremost, God's will is that we be saved, that we have a knowledge of Him as Savior.

The second thing, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

God wants you saved.

Sanctification is a big church word, it means growing.

It's what we're talking about.

He wants you, it is his will.

You don't have to ask, you don't have to think, you don't have to guess.

If God wants you to understand more biblically, he does.

Every person here, it'd be great if every person here took some theological classes.

God desires for depth in your walk with him.

Okay?

It's for sanctification.

The third thing that we see, specific about his will, it says, in him you also trusted if you heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation.

In him also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.

I skipped one, got it in my notes, but not for you.

That's okay.

God desires that you be spiritual.

The next one you see there, for this is the will of God, 1 Peter 2.15, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

God desires that you stand.

You don't have to guess about this.

We're in a time and age where standing for the right things is not sometimes politically appropriate.

Sometimes it's not real popular, but we innately know some things that we should be standing for and standing upon God's word.

So there's another thing.

1 Thessalonians 5, 17 and 18.

Look what it says.

Pray without ceasing, in everything, give thanks, for this is what?

The will of God.

It's not a question, it's not magical.

You don't have to seek this out.

It is God's will that we be praying and that we be thanking God, that we be supplicating before God and supporting the work of God.

And so it's not something that you have to magically seek out.

Some of it's right there in front of us.

And so the last thing is in 1 Peter 4.19.

People don't like to preach or talk about this, but it says, Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him.

It is God's will for us to have some persecution.

If you're living the right kind of Christian life, I'm gonna be honest with you, it's not gonna be very popular with some people.

There's people in your family that are gonna hear the truth and maybe not like it.

There's some people at your work that it's gonna rub against because it should.

The truth sometimes is like that.

And so, like my college professor said though, the truth never fears a challenge.

And so it is God's plan and his will for you to do these things.

Well, the thing for us is this, though, there's a spiritual struggle, uh tug of war that goes on all of our life.

The flesh and the spirit are at war.

And James said this I'm drawn away, I'm drawn away by my own flesh and enticed.

I struggle because this old flesh comes back at me every day.

And I want you to think about God's will for your life.

We uh I'm a checklist person.

Now, I'm not gonna say that I always get through my checklist.

I'll have a checklist and then make another checklist, and but I like to see my goals in front of me, and I think about that.

Does anyone here have a checklist at home to read through the New Testament this year?

Does anyone here have a checklist goal to spend 20 more minutes a week in prayer?

What's your checklist?

Do you have a goal to display the fruits of the Spirit better in your life?

Gentleness.

Ooh, that gets me.

Kindness, patience.

Do you have goals in front of you to be a deeper Christian?

Well, we have checklists, right?

For the week, for the month.

We have our checklists.

We have checklists for a better body, we have checklists for a better house and to fix the things in our house to clean, to update.

We have checklists for a better vacation, for a better bank account, to be a better influencer today, to be better at my job.

We have checklists.

And where do your kids' checklists fall for your priorities?

Because we got schedules and checklists for them.

Do you have a checklist for your kids?

Goals for your kids to be a better Christian?

And how does that happen?

Goals for your family and your close friends to be better at being a Christian?

Well, I want you to look down at chapter 2 real quickly.

We're going to read a couple of verses.

We'll get back to this in a couple of weeks, but I need you to see just the heart of why Paul wrote this letter to the church.

Paul was in prison, and he had got word that the people of the church there were making less of Jesus Christ.

The Colossian heresy, as it's called.

Look at what it says, two, two, and three.

That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Now look at verse 9 and 10.

For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power.

You see, the Colossian heresy was that Jesus Christ, whom many of these people just experienced, was not really fully God.

And so they had a place for a Christ, but not the place.

And it's a scary thing when we have a place for Christ.

We maybe have a Wednesday and a Sunday for Christ, but the rest of the week, the Colossian heresy was like, he can have his place, but it's like this it's like you're around the pool and you dip your toes in the edge of the water, but never really gonna swim.

And the Colossian heresy promotes that you don't be deep.

And what Paul is saying, you need to get this to understand him and who he really is to be filled as a Christian.

Well, the prayer continues.

Letter B is this a prayer for godly wisdom.

What is godly wisdom?

Verse 9, it says there, in the knowledge of his will and in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, not scientific wisdom, not political wisdom, not mechanical wisdom.

What is God's will when it concerns wisdom?

God's will must be discerned.

That is why Paul prays in this way.

And you can look through scripture where it verifies Proverbs says, wisdom is like silver that you should cry out for it.

In James it says, if you lack, if any of you lacks wisdom, it says, call for it, ask for it.

Hebrews tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace.

I was thinking about that, and um my children, um, not so much anymore, they've learned some through living, but there was a time and season where my children came to me very boldly.

In fact, believing that we are wealthy, very wealthy.

They would come to me asking for money, and uh, y'all, I don't know about you, but inflation trying to kill me.

We went the other day, um, Wyatt was interested in getting some shorts, and we go to Dick's Sporting Goods, and I do the calculations, you know.

Um, I'm looking at shorts, and by nature, this is less material.

It's short.

And so I'm looking at the material and I'm going, how much does it cost to wrap around a 130-pound body?

Uh, you need about, you know, one feet of material, and you know, I got the calculations in my head, and I'm looking at them and looking at his weight, and my accurate estimations is it's about two and a half dollars for the material.

Four and a half minutes for labor, and so$15, they can make money.

That's the way I think.

And why it's got the stuff on the rocket sixty-seven dollars for a pair of shorts.

I'm like, they're short.

Can you see?

I'm like, Dad, can I have some shorts?

Yeah, you can wear last year's shorts, and they'll really be short, like you want.

But they they come boldly, they come believing.

When I was their age, I would go to my mom.

My mom works some night work, and it was great when you needed money because mom was always tired, and I come to mom and I say, Hey mom, can I have some money?

Um, I'm gonna need some snacks later.

She said, give me my purse.

I go grab her purse and I pull something out, and she's half asleep.

She might see it, she might not.

And I pull one out.

I said, Is this okay?

Yeah, yeah, I have a five, I had a ten, once a twenty, right?

And look, but I never asked my dad.

Y'all hear me?

I asked my dad for money one time.

I was seven.

His eyes started twitching.

He said, What'd you say, boy?

He said, How old are you now?

I said, I'm seven, dad.

He said, When I was seven, I had a full-time job.

You asked me for money.

But my kids come boldly.

Paul said, boldly pray as if all that you need is supplied by the one who has it all.

Come boldly asking for wisdom.

Some of you have talked to me about new business.

Ventures come boldly asking for wisdom.

Some of you are asking about depth with your children.

Come boldly asking for wisdom.

What is next on the docket for you?

Come boldly.

We talked about that filling.

If you're filling with the Holy Spirit of God, you will produce godly wisdom.

Now, if you're feeling full of the flesh, it's gonna be hard to have godly wisdom to come out of you.

If you're unable to have a deep biblical conversation and you've known the Lord for a while, it's the filling.

It's because you've not concerned yourself with very much study.

It's let me get on the app for a few minutes.

That's immature.

Paul said, My job is to present you, church, as mature.

And he said, I'm praying that you, of all people, when the whole world is looking for help, it's gotta be my people in that church that are full of wisdom.

They ought to be the world leaders in wisdom.

Many people have much information.

We're in the information age, and you can get information instantly and a lot of it.

But a collection of information doesn't make a person wise.

And a regurgitation of that collection of information doesn't make a person wise.

Wisdom is applying the information that you've been given.

It makes action out of what you know.

Heather caught me last week.

I almost put my used fork in the jelly jar.

I saw her out of my parf, and she was coming.

And she still caught me.

And she saw, she said, I saw what you almost did.

Get a clean knife, Rick.

I almost did it.

I got the information.

I know that I was about to, yes, spread my germs.

And I was almost gonna apply information wrongly.

That was not wise, you'd say.

Samson in the Old Testament was told how to keep his strength.

And he got him a beautiful lady who wanted to know the secret.

You know what Samson didn't do?

He didn't act wise.

He didn't apply the information that he knew.

He put himself right there on the edge, right there, with the chance to get that flesh and fill it, right?

That's what Samson did.

Wow.

That's what we've got everyone.

And you know what happened?

And so, what is wisdom?

It's applying that information.

God desires for us to be matured.

Godly wisdom is for the mature, 1 Corinthians 2.6 says.

Ephesians 3.10 says, through the church, the wisdom of God should be made known.

The church has to be the world leader in applying information, doing right.

2 Timothy 3.15 says, Scriptures are able to make you wise because of wisdom.

And so God desires for us, church, to lead in this way.

The second point this morning is this fully pleasing and fruitful Christianity.

Y'all will have to excuse me, my mic fell apart on the back of my neck.

This happened a few weeks ago.

And I tried to wrestle with the rest of the service.

And it was not easy.

I think I got it.

Alright.

Y'all hear me?

Fully pleasing and fruitful Christianity.

Our desire to do God's will translates into action.

For Christ, that is fully pleasing, taking steps towards death.

Death.

When I was 28, I got to thinking about this, I had to take some action.

Because here's what kept happening.

Heather kept getting pregnant, and she would have the babies, and I would stay pregnant.

She would have the babies and I would stay pregnant.

So we went through three pregnancies, and at 28, I was looking down.

I'm like, oh my soul.

What are we doing here, Rick?

I would have one flight of stairs to get up at the church, and I get to the top and I was out of breath.

I used to be in love with playing some softball.

I go to the softball field, one fly ball there, and I'm like.

My kids want to play.

I'm like, no, daddy's 28 now.

We can't do that.

When I was 24, it was different.

But I started making some action steps.

I started then at 28 investing in a gym membership.

Hours and hours in the gym.

Action steps that keep me from being winded.

That's called wisdom.

Church.

Action steps that keep me feeling good.

At 40, I feel way better than I felt at 28 because I'm taking an action step of applying information that will help me.

Listen, I want better depth in my life.

I can't control the number of days, but I can control the depth of the days.

Emerson said it this way: the length of your life isn't a choice, but the depth of your life is always up to you.

Hear me, church.

Look at verse 10.

It says that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

And so letter A, it's a prayer for depth in Christ.

The prayer was, it went this way, the prayer formation, that you be filled, full with God's will, with wisdom, walking worthy now and fruitful.

To walk worthy, Paul calls this out.

He says, if you're going to be a Christian, if you're going to say that you're that, then walk worthy.

It's proving that the inward convictions is an outward step.

What you say you are and what you say you believe ought to come out in action.

So he says, literally, walk worthy of what you say you are.

Is your walk all week long matching what you say that you are?

And he says, he's praying this way that every Christian will walk worthy.

Prove it, increasing in knowledge, he says.

How do we do that?

2 Timothy 2.15 says that we should study the Word of God, rightly dividing the Word of truth.

Study to show thyself approved unto God, rightly dividing.

So a couple of practical things.

One, very practical, right?

One, read the Bible.

Set a time and read the Bible.

You cannot possibly grow in depth with God if you do not read the Bible.

I know this is not groundbreaking.

You're not gonna go post this on social media all day.

The pastor said, guess what?

Read the Bible.

I got the secret.

But it really is the most unused secret.

We get so busy with so many things.

And I'm not talking about read the Bible like get it on the checklist.

I'm like, love it.

Have you ever had that time where you got to yourself alone and you loved something?

Love to read the Bible.

And so he says, to walk worthy, you have to study this book.

Two, meditate over it.

You gotta have enough time to read it and then think about what in the world did I just read?

Meditate, think on it, understand it.

Three, investigate it.

If you're looking up a particular topic, maybe parenting, search the scriptures for different places that talk about that.

Or you're looking up about being generous or gentle, search the scriptures.

You don't ever Google something the first time that you're looking for anything, and Google one time and say, I'm buying it.

That's it.

No, you you do the research, you do the study.

Have you ever planned a vacation and picked the very first place?

No, you're looking, you're searching, you're searching for a good deal.

The reviews, you're investigating.

You need to compare and study and investigate.

Who wants to just be on the surface?

Barely.

Ladies, how many of you say, you know, Pastor, I just want a husband who's just surface level.

Just in it, just just just barely dipping his toes in the water for me.

I don't need anything real deep, just something, just mediocre is okay.

Just need me immediately, maybe apathetic.

Nobody says that.

You see, surface things, shallow end things are take it or leave it things.

And I think for a lot of people, the difference in getting deep with God is that sometimes this is like a take it or leave it thing.

Like you know it and you have this idea, I should be about it, but it's take it or leave it in action in your life.

And that's why Paul says, I'm praying for depth.

I want to love classic cars.

Okay?

I want to.

It would really behoove me in a lot of ways if I did.

Uh my mentor talked about classic cars all the time.

Heather's uncle, who I really respect, loves classic cars.

But the reality for me is I'm at the shallow end of love for classic cars.

They're really cool.

I like the muscle cars, I like how they look.

I've been I've been to two or three shows, folks.

Dipping my toe in the water.

Pastor Danny used to talk about them all the time.

He'd talk about engine sizes and numbers, and I try to throw something out there.

Is that a 6, 7, 47?

He's like, I don't know, Rick.

I don't know.

I've not studied it.

I may not ever get deep.

You know why?

I don't have the time to love it.

That's how many are living their walk with Christ.

You think it's cool.

And you think it's cool for those people that do love it and are into it, but you just haven't studied.

And the sad truth is, you may never.

You know people are deep and you like them.

But it gets very surfacey for some.

And I gotta tell you, this is hard preaching here.

The opposite, Paul says in Corinthians, if you got a second, turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

The opposite is called a carnal man.

Carnal man.

A carnal man is a Christian that does not think spiritually, thinks on that flesh.

And it's hard, it's hard to discern as a person.

I'm not the judge, God is the judge, but it's hard to discern.

Sometimes a carnal man looks like a not Christian at all, man.

They can look almost like, they can be around it and they can kind of maybe talk a little bit of the lingo, but their flesh really desires the world's meat.

First Corinthians 3, 2 through 3, look at what it says.

He said, I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it.

And even now, after time, you're not able.

For you are still carnal.

For where there are envy, listen to these things that explain it.

You're envious.

Where there's strife, that's where you're at.

And divisions, they're among you.

Are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

He says it's carnality.

The Greek word for carnal is sarquikos.

It's where we get the word meat.

In Spanish, carne is the word for meat.

And we see that to be carnally minded is to live for the meat of this world.

It's to feed the lust of this flesh, to live for that meat.

It's to live for the things that animals live for.

The animal lives like a soulless being because it is.

It's just trying to get by day by day, grunting away in light without any depth.

And so to feed the flesh and to feed the lust, to feed the desire is all to starve the spirit.

And when a person lives for all these things, we starve out the spirit.

And scripture says a person can know God and be that way.

They are children of God, they're part of the church, but they're desperately unfulfilled.

And I don't know what you're coming in like today.

But I wonder how fulfilled you feel in your walk.

Ron Stone said this about carnal Christians.

They have been saved from the world they used to live in, and therefore they can no longer enjoy the things of the world because their nature has been changed.

But neither can they enjoy their new Christian life because they have no power over sin and they live in spiritual failure and defeat.

Therefore, carnal Christians are often some of the most frustrated people on earth.

Back and forth.

If you're Christianity today, if you come in and it's weighty, it's heavy for you.

And when you thought about church, listen, I'm not to judge.

I hope my prayer, listen, don't hear me as condemnation.

I hope God will just change that.

And I pray for myself often.

God, change the motives within me.

I don't have it in me right now.

I'm very human right now.

God, I need you to get in and just do it.

Make me want to be better.

And so, but there's this frustration when you thought about church, and it was like, no, it's too much.

Dragging in, and you come in and a person living like this, they'll check out during worship.

Lord, move me if you can.

Good luck.

Right?

Trudging to get into the Word of God.

If you hear me talking about Connect groups, you might roll your eyes.

Oh, there he goes again.

Always telling us we need to get in a group.

Oh, I don't want to go in no group, preacher.

I want to spend my night watching Jeopardy.

Whatever it is.

Netflix.

Right?

It's tru when you hear it, it's like, oh my God.

It just sounds heavy.

It doesn't sound exciting to you.

It sounds like work.

It sounds like a burden, right?

And it's not judgment, it's just the reality.

There's a place where we get so filled.

I'm telling you, there's nothing the church does that I don't want to do.

We got a man's life.

I want to be there.

I can't be at every place, man.

Even the ladies, I want to greet them and then get out.

But I want to be at everything because I love being around Christian brothers.

It's so exciting.

It is not weighty for me.

I come here and clean the floor in excitement.

I love what God is doing.

I'm not saying I've always been there.

I've certainly had seasons of my life on the roller coaster and felt like, oh, this is so much.

What we do, though, hear me, we do unto God.

And it takes growing deeper to see that this is a privilege.

And when we get there, then it can be fun, then it can be joy.

Letter B is this a prayer for durability through Christ.

You heard what it says.

Verse 11.

Strengthen with all might, according to his glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy.

This is a prayer about durability, strengthen by his might.

Again, the continuation of the prayer goes on.

In order to be fruitful and not carnal, it's not going to be of ourselves.

It's going to be through the yielding of his power and his strength.

We have access to him because you're going to need it to grow deep.

You'll need patience.

I want to take you to Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

I want you to turn over to Matthew 13 for a second.

And see what the gospel writer had to say about this idea of depth and what can happen.

Matthew 13, verses 20 and 21.

Matthew 13:20

He's given a parable here.

And if we're not strengthened, if we're not getting down, and here was the word for our series, if we're not rooted in it, if we're not digging deep, look at what can happen.

Verses 20 and 21.

But he who received the steet seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

Yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while.

For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they stumble.

Did you see that?

Because they're not rooted in deep.

They haven't done the things to get deep.

And then when Satan comes with one challenge, we're out of church.

Well, that brother and sister over there, they did not say hello to me this morning.

Their nose is up in the air.

I must not fit in their club.

They sat on the right side, I'm on the left.

I thought we were friends.

That's it.

It's silly, right?

But there's people for 10 years would be out of church because somebody offended them with something.

And as soon as persecution comes, it says it swept up that seed.

Why?

Because it didn't get water digging, rooted deep.

It didn't get in God's word and wake up this morning and say, you know, great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them.

I have the peace of God.

I'm not going to be offended by that.

I'm not going to get frustrated.

And I'm not going to walk out on my God because sister so-and-so and brother so-and-so today.

That's not going to be me.

And so it says, it'll sweep it right up.

This is how it makes me feel.

Like the carnal Christian, another word for the carnal Christian, almost like lazy.

Sort of lazy Christianity.

Like we want to be hammock Christians.

And so that prayer for strength for us is like I work with teenagers, and there's two kinds of teen workers.

I'm right.

I know I'm right.

Two kinds of teen workers.

We do a dinner, and there's some teen workers that pull up their sleeves and get over the dishes and do the dishes.

And then there's a band of other teenagers that gotta go to the bathroom all of a sudden.

I mean, a whole group of them.

It hits them.

They're gut, I mean, about to fall apart when it's dish time, right?

Lazy.

Lazy.

Carnal Christian has no durability.

The shallow Christian will be out in a moment.

They'll lose it quickly, that temper.

You see, it's only the grace of God.

People, some of y'all are drawn toward that angry temper.

Only God can steal that.

If you're drawn toward it, only God and the Holy Spirit and the gentleness can kind of move that.

I told y'all earlier, I struggle with my flexibility.

It's only God speaking to me when my wife says, Can we change our day this way?

And I go, No.

And then God goes, Can you?

And I go, No, God! I already said no.

15 minutes later, Heather, I'd be glad right now to go to Starbucks.

Anytime.

We can go do our nails.

I'm just kidding.

Stop.

It ain't that far.

But it's the Spirit of God working in us.

We're not being lazy Christians.

Paul said, to be deep, you have to be durable.

You gotta be able to take some bumps, take some hits.

Bible says the righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up again.

You've got to be able to be knocked down.

He says Paul loves these uh Olympic ideas, and he said, run the race with patience that is set before you.

Finish my course.

Here's the why.

Here's the why in verse 12 and 14.

Because you've been forgiven much.

Point number three this morning is forgiven Christianity.

Here's the why.

Why depth in Christ?

Why adorable in Christ?

Why not lazy?

You've been forgiven so much.

Look at verse 12 through 14.

Given thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of his son, of his love, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Letter A.

It's a thankful prayer of recognition to Christ.

Paul says before the Colossians, it is this Christ.

He is all in all.

He is God Jehovah.

Don't get it twisted with this heresy is trying to teach you.

We have been forgiven much by the blood of Christ on the cross of Christ.

Don't miss this.

And he says, we are to be thankful that forgiveness of sins, he says here, has qualified the unqualified.

We weren't qualified for this thing.

We weren't qualified for heaven.

But now, because of Christ and his Performance, not ours.

We've been qualified.

Second Corinthians 5 21 says you were qualified to receive every blessing of God by being made righteous with God.

We're partakers with Christ.

When you become a Christian, you've been adopted into the family of Christ.

You don't have to do one more thing to qualify.

Nothing.

And so he says, Thank God.

It was him who did this on the cross.

It's a gift.

You just have to believe it and receive it.

Confess of your sins.

Make him your Lord.

You surrender to him.

You're qualified to be completely forgiven and made a child today.

That's what it says there.

Darkness is pushed away.

The kingdom of God comes in verse 13.

And we have been redeemed by his blood.

So it's forgiven, and let it be, it's a thankful prayer for riches.

It's not this that we've been forgiven.

He says there's a depth to this.

The inheritance of the saints is what it says.

You're qualified to be filled with God's Holy Spirit.

To get deep, you are qualified to do that.

You are qualified to receive healing from God.

You're qualified to get prayers answered from God.

You're qualified to live with God in heaven.

You're qualified to these things.

But preacher, you don't know me.

You don't know my past.

You don't know what I've done.

Good news today.

It doesn't matter.

No dark thing that you've done can stop the spirit of the living God.

Jesus paid the price to qualify you.

There's people that say to me, I just I just don't have time to get any deeper.

And I want you to hear me.

Christianity is not like that.

Christianity is radical.

There's not radical Christians, there's Christians.

And to be a Christian and a follower and a disciple of Christ means that you're qualified to do this, but that it's in you to do this.

It's a desire, a burning for this.

It's so radical that a man was beaten for it.

It's so radical that a man was bloodied for it.

It's so radical that a man was betrayed for it.

It's so radical that a man was buried for it for you and me so that we could get deep.

It goes against the entire grain of what it is to not get deep.

You must get deep.

Jesus Christ was deep for you.

And if you're not getting deep, it's rebellion.

Right now, because of Jesus' blood, we are qualified for all of his blessings.

So hear me in this sense.

This is the anti-judgment.

So you cannot believe that you're not good enough.

Everything he did tells us that we qualify to be deep.

And I'm going to tell you, you can't get deeper than what happened through the blood of Jesus.

Scripture says that we came into this earth, Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Romans 6.23 says, for the wages of that sin is death.

One day we got an appointment with death.

But the gift of God, that bloodshed on that cross was for me and for you.

One day, because Jesus got deep, I'm going to receive the riches, the inheritance that my pastor growing up received.

He just received it this week.

E.L.

Britton was my pastor growing up.

He died 101 years old.

Went up to glory.

And I'm telling you, it was like the last time his whole life was a day and a walk with God.

So when he transferred from this to the next, he was already in deep, and it was like he'd already been there.

I'm telling you, heaven on earth was around this man because he was daily getting deeper.

So when he went up to heaven, he wasn't in a shock.

He didn't say, Wow, look at him.

He said, I've been living this already.

Finally, I'm home.

At 101, I'm going to receive the inheritance of Joshua.

And you are going to receive the inheritance of Moses and Paul, John the Baptist and the disciples.

Billy Graham.

Y'all hear me?

The depth of these people.

And because of what Jesus did for you, he said, Will you go all in?

Deep.

I'm finishing with this.

I read this story, was reminded of it this week.

There's a man named Ali Hafed.

He owned a really large farm with orchards and grains and fields and gardens.

Wealthy.

Said at the time of this story, he was a content man.

And one day, Ali entertained a guest who had told him about diamonds and diamond mines and how wealthy he would be if he could get his hands on a diamond mine.

Ali went to bed that night just craving the interest of a diamond mine and what it would be like to go off in his life and venture out for diamonds.

So he began to take steps.

Ali sold his farm, everything that he had, and he began to travel the world looking for mines.

Finally, because of this path that Ali went on, he began poor, he lost what he had, and he got defeated.

And after a long search, Ali was so discouraged that he took his own life.

The man who purchased Ali's farm, one day this story broke.

That man led his camel into the garden to drink.

His camel put its nose into a brook, and the man saw a flash of light in the brook in Ali's garden.

He pulled out what he found was a stone, and he looked at that stone as the hues in it produced what looked like a rainbow, and he said, I can't believe this.

It's a diamond.

That man had discovered what's called the mine of Galkonda, the most magnificent diamond mine in all of history.

Ten million carats of diamond weight was found in that mined.

And instead of experience the riches of depth that was right there, he died with nothing, lost it all in the shallow end of life.

When if he would have just looked and dug deeper, he would have seen that right there in front of him was all of it.

And the world says, Look over here, Christian.

And Satan says, It's right here.

You don't have this, look at what they have.

And we get jealous, and everybody says, You just need this, and this car and this house.

And if you just fill this account, if you'll have this vacation, if you'll just search me out.

And it pulls people away from what's really important and drives them to emptiness.

And if they'll just see, church, if we as a church would just see the depth of what we can have.

The hymn writer wrote these words.

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus.

Vast, unmeasured, boundless free, rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.

Underneath me, all around me is the current of thy love.

Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes this morning?

We started 23 saying we would burn the boats and go all in.

And I'm asking now, if you decided to be all in, the next step I believe God has given to us is will you dive deep?

I'm going all in.

I'm with you, preacher.

I'm going all in in 23.

Will you dive deep?

What is that next step for you?

I'm going to ask you to stand to your feet this morning.

And here's what I'm asking during this time of invitation.

I believe God is speaking to the hearts of people today.

And this is what He wants you to know.

I want you diving deep.

And if you would take a time during this altar call and respond to God by saying, God, I'm in.

My declaration before you, my church, my family today is I'm in.

Whatever the next step is for you, I'm ready to dive deep.

Preacher, I'm ready to dive deeper and deeper.

I want to flush out all the cares of this world and let me be his fooley.

I'm going to pray and then I'm going to ask you, will you respond to that invitation?

Father, your love is vast.

Your word is sure.

And God, I don't know what this world has to offer but rockiness.

But I know this there is stability in you.

And God, I pray for a church, Lord, that will be mature in you.

Lord, let us dig deeper.

Let us be committed to being deeper.

And God, I pray for a church that will walk away when we're done with this book, feeling like we are in.

We are going to grow.

We are committed to growing in Christ.

Lord, our checklist might change.

Our homes might change.

But whatever you're speaking to, the Spirit of People, Lord, I pray that they would act on it this morning.

Bless and use this time of invitation.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

If God spoke to you this morning, why don't you step out?

The call is will you dive deeper?

Will you commit this morning?

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