What's Your Next Step?

All right.

Well, if you want to, um, we're gonna be in in Mark chapter 4 this morning.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

We're gonna also be in um in Hebrews chapter 5 and 6 uh as we close this series out.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

Adventure awaits.

And let me let me just encourage you or remind you, today is the last day you have opportunity to be here at 8.15.

Some of you might be disappointing, some of you might be encouraging, but next week is going to be 9 and 11.

9 and 11.

Say that back with me, 9 and 11.

So I and so we we tried this, and and we're we're I love that our church is able and willing, and we can uh experiment a little bit, um, and so we may not have figured out what to do about our space issues in the short term.

We're praying about the long term, and uh it's an adventure and it's fun uh to see how the Lord leads.

So uh this past um uh this past weekend or even actually going all the way back to Thursday, my my youngest son Caleb uh plays on a basketball team and he had his end-of-the-year tournament in Easley, South Carolina.

So I have had enough basketball to last me for a while.

But while we are on the trip, um it's fun to uh to talk about sports and basketball.

And I pulled up a YouTube video of a guy named Pistol Pete Mayovich, and I wanted it, I wanted Caleb to see uh Pistol Pete.

He's heard me talk about Pistol Pete Mayovich, probably my all-time favorite basketball player among maybe there's a few of them, but uh, but he he he he came along when I was a child and and uh still holds the record for the highest scoring average in the history of college basketball at LSU, probably a record that will never be broken, 44 points a game or somewhere in that ballpark, and was a great NBA player, um, retired from basketball and then died uh early, very young in comparatively to what um and just was playing in a pickup basketball game with James Dobson.

Some of you know who James Dobson is, he used to lead the focus on the family, and he just fell over and had a massive heart attack and passed away.

But I was shit I was showing the videos of Pistol Pete and all of his, I mean, he just was a wizard with the basketball.

I mean, he could, you know, trick passes and and and just handling the ball.

He was incredible.

And so we're watching the video of him playing in the NBA, and Caleb said, Dad, where's the three-point line?

He said, Dad, where's the three-point line?

And if you're a basketball or sports person, you know what I'm talking about, is in my lifetime, they've added that line to the three-point line.

And I said, Well, son, they didn't have it back then.

They had two, it was two points.

If you hit a basket, wherever you hit it from on the court, it was two points.

And so we got to talking, and especially um following a game during the tournament where we saw a team that was behind by about 12 points with only about three minutes left.

12 points is a lot in a short period of time.

But when you have a player that can come down and two times in a row hit a three-pointer and cut it in half in just literally maybe 45 seconds, it's it's amazing how quick you can come back from a deficit that seems overwhelming overwhelming.

Isn't that neat how that can happen in basketball?

It's kind of like with your kids playing a board game and they're playing uh shoots and ladders or or or some other uh card game and they get way behind and they just want to quit.

My my kids sometimes would just start crying.

I don't want to play anymore.

And I'd say, no, you're gonna finish this game.

We're gonna finish it.

You are gonna be an adult, and if you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose with character, and if you win, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna win with character.

And then, of course, you know, they roll the dice and they they they um it lands on the number that they that is favorable to them, and they hit up, they hit one of those spots on the board game that says move all the way to the front.

And I mean, in a second, the tears dry up, and they start doing a jig because they're ahead of mom and dad, right?

They don't got the winning with character part, probably because they've seen me act the same way when I win.

Um and but wouldn't it be awesome to have a three-point line in every area of life where we could we could just hit make hit make a couple of decisions, uh, take one step, do a couple things, roll the dice the right way, and move ahead automatically.

Think about it.

What if you if you wanted to lose 10 or 20 pounds, you just you just rolled the dice and it landed on the right number, and the next day you were 20 pounds lighter?

Wouldn't that be awesome?

But that is not the way life is, unfortunately.

What if you could get a degree, but you didn't have to sit in all those boring classes?

If any of you know any of my professors in seminary, don't mention that I said that.

Um, some of you do know them.

If you could, listen, if you could raise your children and at the age of 18 and 19 or 20, 21, they they just loved God with all their hot heart, and they were just, you know, thank you, mom and dad, for all the investment.

I just want to pay you back all the money that you spent on me.

I mean, they just had this incredible heart, you know, they just they just you know, their heart melted before the Lord, and you didn't have to go through any pain or difficulty to get there.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

But is that the way life is?

No, it's not.

You know that sticker that people, that obnoxious braggart braggarts put on the back of their cards that says 22 point, 26.2?

They kind of just make you sick, right?

They put 26.2.

What is that, what is that indicative of?

They've run a marathon.

Now, what if you could just bypass all the training that goes into running marathon and put the sticker up there?

And you can, and some people probably have.

They just put it up there without what it what if you could just draw a check without having to show up to work every day?

And that's that we know that's wrong.

We know that's wrong.

We we think, hey, it would be great if we could skip some steps in our lives, bypass the hard work, the difficulty, the tears, and all the pain, and and almost like Adam Sandler in the movie Click, we could just hit, we could hit a button and bypass all the things that are hurtful or painful and enjoy all the good, easy, and pleasurable moments in life.

But that's not how life works.

Life is full of difficulties, it's full of hardship, pain, and difficulty, sometimes suffering and hard work, and that's how we grow.

And so we we've been trying to convince you this series that our faith journey is not about a destination.

It's not about just getting to heaven, punching a ticket.

It's about this journey in life.

It's not necessarily us getting to heaven, it's about heaven getting to us here on this earth, working in us and through us.

That's what Jesus prayed.

Pray, Father, heaven would come, heaven would come here and now and work its way through us.

Your will be done as it is in heaven and now on earth.

The adventure of faith, John Ortberg says this.

We've quoted this a couple times, I think, in the series.

He says, the adventure of faith is not about reaching a destination, but about learning to trust and follow Jesus wherever he leads.

And so sometimes you've heard the statement, they're so heavenly minded, they really know, say it with me, earthly good.

And and and so heaven, listen, by the way, I am I'm a student of heaven.

I like studying about heaven.

I think heaven is something we should long for.

It is a blessing, it is a gift from God, it is something that we should understand, but but we've got to come back to reality that in this earth we want to see heaven come and work in us and through us.

There are there are experiences that have yet to happen in our life where God wants to work through us, work through us through the Holy Spirit.

And so we want a foundation.

We want we want we want a we want to be on this journey.

We want every day to be conscious and be aware of how God can work.

And so in this series, we talked about the very first Sunday of this series, kind of an introduction.

We talk about the invitation and the challenge that God is always working through inviting us into the journey.

This these two strands of DNA that run through Scripture that are invitation and challenge.

God invites you, He says, Come unto me, all of you who are heavy laden, Jesus says.

And I'll give you rest.

He invites you into this journey.

He wants you.

There is grace, and we love the invitation.

We love those those parts of the journey where God shows up and meets our need.

But then he also challenges us.

There's this strand of DNA that runs through the scripture where God says, listen, I love you so much and love you enough that I'm not gonna leave you where you are, but I'm gonna pull you into what I want to do, and I'm gonna see you formed into the character of Christ.

There's always a next step for us to take in our spiritual journey.

As a matter of fact, the big idea this morning is everyone has a next step on their faith journey.

Everyone has a next step on their faith journey.

And so as we think about this this morning, the goal is that is that God wants to call you into taking another step.

And some of you are mature believers.

You have been walking with Jesus.

You you have character that exhibits the character of God, and you you you obviously have a sensitive spirit to the Holy Spirit and a sensitive heart to the Holy Spirit.

And we get into these patterns of go to church, read our Bible, do the devotionals, um, you know, be willing to serve, take it, take the step of obedience to be baptized.

And we get to a point where we feel like we've kind of ironed out a lot of the rough spots in our life, and we've got to be willing to ask the question, what is next for for us?

There's always a next step.

And this parable in Mark chapter 4, I'm not gonna read the parable.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

I'm um we we did a we taught on this not too long ago, but I want to um, I just want to kind of go back over uh the four seeds that are scattered on four different types of soil, and the seed represents the word of God, and the soil represents the condition of our hearts.

The first soil is the path, which represents the hardened heart.

The second soil was the shallow soil.

The seed sprouts, but it can't have, uh it doesn't have deep roots to get the necessary nutrients needed, so it withers and dies very quickly.

The third soil is the thorny soil, which represents the preoccupied heart, where the cares of the world choke out life from the young seedling.

And then the final soil is the good soil that produces a great harvest.

And so you can go back and watch that message or look up a message associated with this passage and get more detail.

But verse 9 in this passage says this, says this.

Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

Maybe one of your translations will say it this way He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

What is Jesus getting at?

He's getting at the importance of cleaning out your ears and having the ability to listen and to be sensitive to the voice of God.

Have you ever been in a conversation with your spouse or your kids and you're just talking?

You're talking 90 miles an hour, and then you realize a bit into the conversation that they really aren't listening to anything you're saying.

I'm usually the person who is on the receiving end and really not listening as well as I should.

And I come up with excuses.

I'm like, honey, I'm sorry, I got I got a lot of wax in my ear.

Is that the problem?

No, I'm just preoccupied.

I'm preoccupied.

And so we've we've got to we've got to metaphorically clean out our ears, open up our heart, listen to what Jesus would say to us.

What would Jesus say to you this morning?

Sometimes it's the same way when it comes to following Jesus.

We sit in church or we're in a small group or we're in a setting where the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you.

It may be driving down the road or it may be at work, and for some reason we're just not ready to hear.

We joke a lot about what we call spiritual constipation, and it's when there's a lot of information that has come into our lives, but we often are not willing to exercise what we are hearing and let it flow through our life, and all of a sudden, blessings stop, and we're waiting for God to move and work, and God is waiting for us to obey one of the last things we heard Him tell us, and let it become action in our life.

Mark 4, 24 and 25.

Then he added, pay close attention to what you hear.

The closer you listen, the more understanding you'll be given, and you will receive even more.

To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given.

But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from him.

Now, this is a good word, but also a scary word at the same time.

Jesus is saying that when we listen and obey, he will give us more.

He'll give us more of his word, he'll give us more revelation, he'll give us more new wine, fresh, a fresh work of his spirit.

But one that does not listen and obey, they will just become stagnant.

Bigger principle we find in scripture is this this idea of sowing and reaping, planting and harvesting.

The apostle Paul talks about this in Galatians 6, 7 and 8.

He said, Don't be misled.

You cannot mock the justice of God.

You will always harvest what you plant.

Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.

But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.

So we plant our lives into the gospel work, into a gospel-centered life, and what you invest in, you will reap the harvest from that.

If you invest in sin, you're gonna reap a harvest of destruction.

You're gonna reap a harvest of disobedience.

You're gonna reap a harvest of a broken life.

Listen to this.

God will not reveal more truth than you are capable of receiving.

God will not reveal more truth than you're capable of receiving.

God's not in the practice of just getting you to jump through the stages of spiritual growth.

There is no magic roll the dice and move to the front of the line.

There's really no three-point line in the kingdom of God.

You just can't throw up a couple of three-pointers and and move farther back, you know, up to the front.

And here's what you would say, Russ, I've seen people who would just come out of brokenness.

And they seem to have God all over them, God working in them.

And they seem to kind of, you know, it's almost as if they have hit a couple three-pointers or they've landed on, moved to the front.

And it seems that way to you, but in reality, there has been something going on in their life behind closed doors.

You see it in sometimes in the quietness of people.

They're not out in front.

They're not trying to be seen or known, but but they are just they're prayer warriors.

And you don't know because you're you're you're not privy to what's happening in their prayer closet or in their own private life.

But God is working.

Here's what Richard Blackaby says.

He says, spiritual maturity comes not from learning secrets and gaining inside information about God's kingdom, but from walking faithfully with God and regularly obeying what he tells you.

And so that's that's just basic spiritual growth one-on-one.

Listen to what God says and then obey what he tells you to do.

And so we think of spiritual giants.

We look at pastors or Billy Graham or evangelists or historic leaders in the church, even in modern times.

It always goes back to what Eugene Peterson says.

He says spiritual maturity is always the result of a long obedience in the same direction.

A long obedience in the same direction.

And it's sometimes in the mundane areas of your life that you just simply listen and obey, listen and obey, listen and obey.

Easier said than done, he goes on to say this, Gene Peterson, he says it's not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel.

It is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest.

Y'all see that?

That's why we say, listen, if you don't get involved in a group or a or a serve team, I can guarantee you in six to eight months, you will you will fall away.

And we we hate it.

We hate that when that happens.

We we want to follow up with everybody, but it's hard to follow up with people that haven't got connected and made themselves known and available.

And so we we've got to be willing to take the next step.

What is God saying to us?

We've got to we've got to obey and then and then take action.

This is the writer of Hebrews, and so this letter to the church, to the church that's scattered, he's talking about Jesus being the great high priest.

And in chapter 5, verse 11 of the letter titled Hebrews to the to these Hebrews, to these Christians that are scattered.

There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don't seem to listen.

You've been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others.

Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word.

You're like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.

For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right.

Solid food is for those who are mature who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.

And so he's we're Writing about people that are unable to understand the deeper truths that come from God.

They weren't ready to receive the message.

They weren't ready for solid food, filet mignon.

And so he says, you're going to stay in your infant state where all you can have is the milk of the word.

Chapter 6, Hebrews chapter 6, verses 1 through 3.

Hebrews 6:1–3

So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again.

Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding.

Surely we don't need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.

You don't need further instructions about baptisms, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.

Further understanding.

Now we we don't need to neglect.

We don't need to neglect the basic truths, the foundational truths that our faith is built on.

That's something that's like an anchor.

We always are going to be connected to the foundational truths.

We're going to always have new believers that need to hear and need to have a foundation laid.

But what he's saying here is there is there's more that God wants to reveal about himself.

There is fresh revelation that God wants to speak and to reveal to us.

He's always wanting to call us in and pull us into a deeper place in our spiritual growth.

If God is not revealing something new, if he's not doing a fresh work, it may be because you haven't grown in a while spiritually.

Your spiritual, you're kind of sluggish.

And it's like the teacher having to constantly repeat himself over and over about the basics of algebra when you should have reached another level.

Richard Blackaby says this, obedience, not arguing, leads to spiritual growth.

There are times, and I, you know, I can honestly say there are times where you can, or I can, I have, and I feel like I've hit a wall.

And sometimes it feels a bit boring.

But those are the times where I have to stick with the fundamentals and what God has already taught me and continue to be faithful, trusting that He will at some point reveal or do something fresh in my life.

I came across something over the last couple of days that got me excited.

You know, there was a great revival at the Asbury Seminary in Kentucky back about 1970.

God poured out his spirit in what was supposed to be a simple chapel service on the campus of this college and seminary.

At the end of the normal chapel, the kids, the young people, the students remained in the chapel and it lasted for days.

Days.

And they would just come back.

You know what the key ingredients?

It was repentance and confession and prayer and worship.

And they just continued in that cycle.

And so what I can when I came across over the last couple of days, I had on looking at some news, just stuff in the news online, there's a fresh revival taking place at the Asbury Seminary.

If you don't, if you want to want to, you can just go on Google it.

And kids have they started out in the chapel and they just stayed.

And so more students started coming.

More came.

And that auditorium that usually is kind of sparsely filled during the chapel.

Because a lot of times, if you've been in a Christian setting where chapel is required, sometimes you're just like, oh my goodness, I got to go to chapel again.

And you got to check in, you got to swipe your card.

I mean, they they there are sometimes mandatory numbers of a that you have to be there at least a certain number of times over the course of a semester.

Some of you know what I'm talking about, right?

And they said, when when, hey, you're all dismissed.

Students started coming and continued to come until the auditorium was filled and the Spirit of God was working.

You know the key ingredients were confession, repentance, corporate worship, students just pouring out their heart to God on their knees, going to the altar without any leader, coaxing them to come to the altar, and the Spirit of God was working.

And so I would love to see something like that happen.

I would love to be a part of something like that.

I hope that that will continue to spread.

I hope it'll have impact far beyond the walls of Asbury Seminary, just like it did in 1970.

It was, it was, it was, it came along just opposed against the what we call the Jesus movement.

Where young people started flocking to churches in all their hippie-like clothing.

And churches were faced with like, what are we gonna do with all these young people that are coming to Christ hungry for spiritual growth?

And so I want to encourage you.

What is your next step?

I'm just gonna throw this graph up, this picture up.

This it's just something we threw up.

We've walked through these four words that we consider, and it's oversimplifying, but it's something that we can wrap our arms around as far as our spiritual pathway, our discipleship pathway.

Believe, belong, become, and build.

And sometimes, I will tell you, they're not necessarily always in that perfect order.

Sometimes you might see people that experience belonging before they believe.

It's possible they grow in relationships, but believe is Sunday gatherings, a start to follow group or a start to follow Bible study.

There's a study called Alpha that this worldwide for new for people that have yet to believe or that are curious about things of God and belong is covenant family membership.

It's your community groups, it's it's those basic groups that you can get plugged into.

It's taking that step of baptism, going public with your faith, not being ashamed to identify yourself with Jesus and to become community groups, serve teams, spiritual formation classes are something that we've we've kind of experimented with, but we hope will will become part of the process where you can go a little bit deeper in theology and learning what it means to grow in your faith, and then build is basically our community ministry, not just giving money, but but volunteering your time.

It's through mission trips.

Hopefully, we've got an information meeting today, right after the third service about Honduras.

That's coming soon, May 29th to June 4th.

Where are you in the process?

Where are you in the process?

And are you willing?

Listen to me, are you willing to take the next step to position yourselves to hear?

Not just to hear, but to obey what God has called you to.

So would you just take a moment?

Bow your heads.

Let's just ask the Lord.

God, would you would you speak?

Would you open our hearts?

Whatever has whatever has stopped up or clogged in our lives and our hearts.

The distance between us hearing and obeying.

Somewhere between the two, there is something that's clogging up our ability to step in obedience.

And it may be a hidden sin.

It might be an addiction.

It might be something that needs to be confessed, that's unconfessed.

It's just being willing, say, God, we want more of you.

We want more of you.

God, would you open our hearts?

Would you lead us to a place where we can see fresh work, new wine, revival, refreshing?

Something that would be far beyond what we are just experiencing in the here and now.