I Pray That you Grow

Welcome church to church home.

And if I have not had the pleasure of meeting you in person, maybe after uh after this service, out in the lobby or outside, it's it's a beautiful day.

It's turning out to be a beautiful day, right?

Um actually, some of y'all probably like me, you know, you feel like this cool weather feels like a nice little break from the heat that we've had this summer.

But don't get too comfortable because I looked at the weather forecast, and 90s are still in the near future.

Um, but it's all right.

It's it's beautiful here, and before you know it, it's gonna be a beautiful fall here in sunny Sacramento.

Um but as many of you know, my family and I, we lived in LA Long Beach for many years before we moved here to Sacramento about four years ago.

And um I know some of you are like, when is Pastor Susie gonna stop talking about how much she misses SoCal?

Well, eventually.

But uh I won't lie, I still do miss uh many aspects of Southern California, but I have grown in appreciation for Northern California in our years here.

Yes.

I would even venture to say there's a lot that I love about Northern California, and mainly it's because of you all, okay?

So I love the people.

Um, but among many other things, one thing that I do still miss about Southern California is the palm trees.

Is that weird?

I mean, I really miss the palm trees.

I know we got some palm trees up here, but it's not like you know, there's some streets that are just lined with palm trees, and it just looks so beautiful.

Now, admittedly, palm trees are not the most ecologically beneficial trees.

In fact, if you live in Southern California, palm trees can actually be a nuisance.

There are people who have like been hit and killed by falling palm trees, and like rats live up in the okay, we won't get it, but they look pretty from afar.

So, in LA at least, because palm trees are actually not native to Los Angeles either.

They were really put there for aesthetic beauty.

So, in their function, in LA at least, it it really is just more aesthetic than it is environmental or functional.

Now, I don't know if this is like the so cal nor cal rivalry that creeps up in some of you, but I've been told by some of you that uh we need to go see about some real trees while we're living up here in Northern California.

Oh, palm trees, those aren't real trees.

Go see about some real trees.

And we've been encouraged to go see the redwoods.

Okay, okay, the redwoods.

Now, when you put a palm tree up against a red wood, I will admit a little palm tree does not stand a chance.

Um, earlier this year, the family we went out to Muir Woods, where we got to see some of these real trees for ourselves.

What we thought was going to be a like a 90-minute hike turned out to be a three-hour plus hike.

We didn't do the math right.

That was just one way that it was 90 minutes.

Uh, but you know, besides some of the complaining that we heard from the kids, it really turned out to be a great time.

It was a good family time.

We enjoyed it.

Now, Marcos, he probably enjoys the woods a little bit more than me, but I will admit it was beautiful.

More than just beautiful, though, uh, I would even venture to say that the redwoods are marvelous.

The redwoods are glorious.

Glorious.

As I took a deeper dive into the story and the function of these redwood trees, more and more the word glorious seems to be the right adjective to describe these trees.

Because in the Bible, the word glorious, the word glorious describes someone or something that possesses and radiates supreme weight, majesty, splendor, and divine beauty.

Glorious is when you look at someone or something and you're like, that is a reflection of divine beauty.

I'd like to say that this is what my husband thinks when he wakes up in the morning and looks at me.

But I know what I look like in the morning.

So I don't think that he turns and looks at me and thinks, glorious.

Just like how I don't, you know, it's weird.

I don't like, I don't hover over my teenage children and look at them and think, oh, glorious.

Not because I don't love them, right?

But I used to do that a lot more when they were babies.

It's easy to do that when they're babies.

Because they sleep a lot and they don't talk a lot.

They're just cute, right?

So it's easy to look at a sleeping baby and be like, oh, glorious.

This is a reflection of divine beauty.

I really I'm I'm a baby lover, so you know, even before I had my own kids, I felt like this.

Like, I don't understand how a person can look at a baby and not believe in God.

Like, I don't know how a person can look at a baby and think that we just happened by chance, that we aren't the result of intelligent, creative, and glorious design.

Similarly, the more that I learned about redwood trees, the more that I began to marvel at their intelligent, creative, and glorious design, I began to marvel at God's handiwork.

And it really, like as I began to learn about redwood trees, I really again, it this is just evidence that there has to be a God.

You can see that by this picture that's about to come up, that one thing that makes redwoods so impressive is their size.

If you're in the middle of a forest full of redwoods, you'll look up and you'll eventually see a picture of redwood trees.

And redwood trees, they're tall.

Use your imagination.

Okay, there we go.

They're tall.

In fact, they're the tallest living things on earth.

They're the tallest living things on earth.

They can grow to be over 350 feet tall, and they can grow for hundreds and hundreds of years.

The largest redwood is out here in Northern California, and it is almost a thousand years old.

So there's something about redwoods.

They they have like a secret that enable them to grow so tall and grow for so long.

Two weeks ago when I preached from Ephesians chapter one, the title of my message was I Pray That You Know.

I pray that you know.

Today, as we look at Ephesians 3, the title is I Pray That You Grow.

I pray that you grow.

I know we started in prayer, but can we just stop and pause and ask God to help us grow again this morning?

God, as we look into your word, as we look at the scriptures, as we hear your word, God enable us to be good soil where good things are deposited, where your word will take root and good fruit will emerge.

Holy Spirit, we want to be attentive to how you want to speak.

We want our hearts to be open to however you want to move.

So deepen our understanding and Lord, help us.

Help us learn more of who you are.

Help us, Lord, to grow in your word.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So a couple of weeks ago, as we looked at chapter one in Ephesians, we looked at the prayer of Paul for the believers in Ephesus and beyond.

So he writes this letter to the believers in Ephesus, but he knew that this letter was going to get circulated.

He knew that this was gonna be beneficial to all believers.

We don't know that, you know, I don't think he could have imagined that 2,000 years later that we'd still be studying this letter and gaining wisdom from it, but praise God, we have something to be encouraged by.

And praise God, the prayers that he prayed back then are still being prayed for us.

These prayers apply to us now.

He prayed for the believers back then and really for us future believers, that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we would know God better.

He prayed that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we would know the hope to which he has called us.

And he prayed that we would know that God has given us incomparably great power for us who believe.

Paul prays for the church a lot throughout his letter to the Ephesians.

And today, as we look at chapter three, we'll see that Paul is praying for the church again.

In chapter one, his prayer was, I pray that you know.

I pray that you know, I pray that you know.

And in chapter three, it seems that the heart of his prayers was, I pray that you grow.

So let's read from Ephesians 3.

If you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to Ephesians 3.

Um, it's also gonna come up on the screen.

And we're actually gonna start in verse 7.

So Ephesians 3, starting in verse 7, says this.

I, this is Paul speaking, he says, I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power.

Although I am less than the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given to me, to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things.

His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

I ask you therefore not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

His intent, God's intent, was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

Through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known.

Who is the church?

It's us.

The church, us, we are meant to be a display of God's manifold wisdom.

When's the last time you were the used the word manifold in a sentence?

Manifold.

Okay.

Manifold in Greek means many-sided or or multicolored or diverse, like a multitoned leaf or fabric, or like us.

Something that is manifold exhibits variety in character, in form, or elements, or giftings like us.

And God's plan, which includes us, involves us, is through us, is rich, complex, and diverse and beautiful.

So the church is meant to be a living demonstration of his grace, but also of unity and of power.

It's meant to be a living demonstration of his wisdom to who?

To the world around us, but also specifically here it says, to the rulers and authorities in the spiritual realms.

Spiritual beings in the heavenly realms, you know, like more succinctly, to angels and demons who observe what God is achieving through us.

I think one thing I it's it's strange because you all know, like you come to church and we're here, we're gonna be spiritual, right?

But uh, how often do we ignore the fact that we actually live in a very spiritual world?

It's easy to touch and feel and taste the things that are material, but we live in a very spiritual world.

There is so much going on in the atmosphere, in the spirit realm that often we ignore or we don't pay attention to, or we try to pretend isn't there, or we just get so distracted that we don't pay attention to the fact that the heavenly realm, the spiritual realm is a very, very real thing.

In fact, one of the greatest weapons of the enemy is to make you think that he's not there at all.

He wants us to fall asleep, he wants us to be distracted, he wants us not to pay attention to the spiritual realm, but we live in a very spiritual world.

And through us, the way that we live, God wants to send a message to the spiritual realm.

See, this unfolding plan was not an afterthought or an accident.

It was always part of God's eternal purpose fulfilled through Jesus Christ to show the manifold wisdom of God through us, through the church.

God knew that we would be the ones to carry out his plan of redemption.

The thing that Jesus did on the cross, we would bring it, we would bring it over the finish line.

We're to go and be a demonstration of the good news to the world around us.

God is putting the spiritual realm on notice through us.

He means business through us.

This is a great vote of confidence.

One thing that many of us as members of Midtown Church take pride in is how beautifully diverse we are.

We talk about it a lot because we value diversity and we we believe it is something that reflects the manifold wisdom of God.

It used to be that 11 a.m.

on a Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America.

But you could look around the room this morning and think to yourself, well, we've come a long way.

And we have in some places, but does that mean that the church is a beautiful display of diversity and unity everywhere you go?

No.

And am I saying that Midtown church has arrived and we are the perfect standard of God's glory and goodness?

No.

But do we want to grow?

Yes.

Now I want you to know that when I say we want to grow, I don't mean just in numbers.

Yes, numerical growth can be a sign of health and goodness, but what good is it if we're large in number but shallow in depth?

What good is it if you hear a good sermon and gain knowledge of the scriptures but don't live it out?

What good is it if you go to church for 10 years but never mature in your faith?

Some people are good with remaining baby Christians for 20 plus years.

That doesn't make sense.

We gotta graduate on from milk to solid food.

We're meant to mature in our walk as believers.

We're meant to mature and grow in our faith.

Because what good is it if we grow in size but we don't grow in faith?

Likewise, what good is it if we grow in size but we don't grow in fellowship with one another?

What good is it if we grow in size but don't grow in fruitfulness?

In Matthew chapter 7, from what many of us might know as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' famous, most famous sermon, Jesus says, you will know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

You will know them by their fruits.

Now he was referring to leaders and religious leaders, but this applies to us as all believers.

We will be known by the fruit that we bear.

And he uses trees as an example, saying that healthy trees produce good fruit and unhealthy trees produce bad fruit.

So what good is it if we grow in size but we produce a bunch of not so great fruit?

As a church, a question that we should often ask ourselves is this if Midtown were to disappear tomorrow, would the community around us even notice?

If Midtown were to disappear tomorrow, would the community around us even care?

If Midtown were to disappear tomorrow, this is an even scarier thought, would some of the people in our community even be relieved?

This week we got an email from a neighbor who um lives up the street, and he's clearly very upset with us.

Uh with some very colorful and passionate language, uh, he expressed his frustration with our behavior, and he sure let us know about it.

So um he emails us, and this is a highly edited and summarized version of his email.

You gotta be able to read it in church, right?

Um so he he he he says this he says, Your congregation parks like expletives in my neighborhood.

There is no reason why your congregation gets to use up all the parking every Sunday.

Can you not accommodate your little cult members?

I know, right?

You guys clearly show how much Christians care about their local community.

Well, dang.

This is definitely uh let me give you a peace of my mind kind of email, right?

And no, this is certainly not the kind of witness that we want to bear.

It's unfortunate that he feels this way.

And you know what?

We do have to take ownership.

We need to do better.

So, you know, we were like, okay, well, we need to respond to this email.

So we said, okay, let's write him an email, and we said, okay, first of all, your mama.

We didn't say that.

You know we didn't say that.

I was like, Pastor Ephraim, I know that's what you want to say, but what would Jesus do?

Come on.

So we didn't say that.

We didn't even think about saying that, okay?

We didn't say that.

Instead, wisely and humbly and prayerfully, we apologized.

We owned it.

We said, yeah, that must be frustrating.

Yeah, some of us need to do better.

And I said, we said, we will do better.

So, church, please don't make us look like liars.

We do have to be mindful of how we park.

And we know it's been hard, especially at 10:30, it's hard getting a good parking spot.

Some of you have been doing really good about coming early, you know, making sure you get your kids checked in on time and everything too, right?

But good news too is that that parking lot down the street that's been closed for years and years, supposedly is gonna open up again soon.

So we're gonna have all that parking underneath the freeway nearby soon.

Hopefully before Jesus comes back, right?

But soon.

But in the meantime, let's please be mindful because our neighbors are watching.

They we have a reputation to make up for, right?

We wanna be a good witness to the community around us.

Um can I lean in just a little bit harder?

This one's a little harder for me to say because we need to keep faithfully wrestling with this one.

We have a banner on the side of our wall that says hope, health, healing.

And we talk about how, you know, let's be the church.

God has given us power to do, like, to advocate for our neighbor, to love our neighbor, and to, you know, even challenge systems.

We live in Sacramento, right?

We've got this banner that says hope, health, healing.

And meanwhile, if you come up to church early in the morning or any given day over the week, weekend, you'll see that we have a lot of our unhoused brothers and sisters who are sleeping like right on the sidewalk in front of the church, beside the church.

I came to church a couple of weeks ago and there was someone sleeping right under that banner.

And the the paradox, like the irony of it, just kind of I had to wrestle with it.

And that's a good thing.

Because I mean, maybe that's a prompting of the Holy Spirit to be like, yeah, we should be bothered by this.

There should be something that we want to do more than just to give someone a bottle of water and say, bless you in the name of the Lord.

God has equipped us to do something, right?

To to be the church, to love people, to see people well.

And I'm not saying these things just to call us out and say, Yeah, we suck.

I'm saying these things to call us up and say we can do better.

Let's grow not just in numbers, but in our faithfulness and in our fruit.

Let's be challenged.

Jesus said, you will know them by their fruit.

And later, in regard to how people, um the people of God would be identified, Jesus said that his followers would be known by their love for one another.

So we will be known by our love, and we will be known by our fruit.

And in the first half of Ephesians 3, Paul says that God's intent was that through the beautiful, multi ethnic, diverse, and gifted people of God, the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms.

So Satan should be scared of us.

We should be a threat to the enemy.

Our presence and our power and us.

Living out our purpose in this world should make demons tremble and angels rejoice.

Demons should tremble because the church is out there being the church.

Angels should rejoice because we know who we are, we know whose we are, and we are equipped and positioned, and we have power and purpose.

And we're living that out in the world.

The atmosphere should change because the people of God have taken their positions and put their God-given gifts to use for God's glory and for the good of his people.

Unfortunately, I think some of us are walking around more scared of Satan than Satan is of us.

There's others of us who Satan is not even worried about because we're really no threat to him.

Now, I'm not saying go about your day trying to pick a fight with the devil.

But if the enemy is not worried about you, why not?

Paul says in Ephesians 3.12, he says, in him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Because he wants us to be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God, to be filled with the measure of fullness, the measure of fullness of God.

This means that God wants us to be filled with him.

Some of us are okay with being full of something else, something other than the fullness of God.

And if I squeeze a tube of lotion, what's gonna come out?

Lotion.

If you get squeezed, what's gonna come out?

Is it the fullness of God?

What does your tree produce?

You will be known by your fruit.

But you know what?

I also want to acknowledge that it's not easy.

I know it's not easy living out your Christian witness.

This does not mean we need to beat ourselves up when we when we fail or fall short, because we do.

We do.

The Christian life can feel like one battle after another, after another, after another, and it's not easy staying saved and sanctified.

Right?

I mean, as soon as we leave church, there may be someone who decides to cut you off in traffic.

Some, you know?

There are things that tell, and it's okay, we're human.

You know, I mean, God, God wants us to follow Him and be sanctified and be, you know, go through this process of sanctification, but it doesn't mean that if you trip up, it's an invitation for you to take some inventory and say, ooh, I need to do better on that.

If you do trip up, if you're witnessing, yeah, maybe you're out there.

I was gonna tell a story, but I'll save it for next time.

But that, you know, I have very real personal examples of where it could be.

You know, in that moment, here's maybe what God wanted me to learn.

I didn't want, I didn't need to beat myself up about a time when I could have done better.

Instead, maybe what the Holy Spirit is trying to train me in is okay, recognize when you fall short, recognize when you were not walking in the spirit in that moment, confess it, admit it, and say, God, I want to do better.

I want to do better.

Own it, apologize, do better.

Right?

And so this is part of our training, and there's a grace for that.

And Paul knew this.

This is why throughout the letter of Ephesians, Paul says, I'm praying for you, I'm praying for you, I'm praying for you.

Because we know, because we have this knowledge, because some of us have tasted and seen how good it is to be in fellowship with God, because some of us are really trying to live in to this identity of being co-heirs with Christ, ambassadors for Christ.

We know that the enemy is going to come for us because we are a threat.

And so this is why Paul says, I'm praying for you.

He prayed for the believers in chapter one.

He says that every day I pray that you would know.

I keep praying for you, that you would know.

Be more and more convinced every day as you get to know who God is, how good it is to be loved by God, how powerful it is to be loved by God.

And then he prays for them in chapter three, and he says, I pray that you continue to grow.

Grow in that knowledge, grow in your witness, grow in your faith, grow in your faithfulness.

He says in verse 16, he says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, I pray that you be strengthened from the inside out, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how long and high and deep and wide is the love of Christ.

See, Paul knows that life gets tough.

And in order to stay resilient, we need to be strengthened in our inner being.

We need to be strong from the inside out.

Can I sum up for you what Paul was saying for us in Ephesians 3, what he was praying for us in Ephesians 3?

He's basically saying, I pray that you know, I pray that you grow, and I pray that you show.

I pray that you show this.

I pray that you know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, that you can't ever be separated from the love of Christ.

That there is not anything that you can do that would make you, that would disqualify you from being loved by God.

There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God.

And I want you to know how far-reaching, how good it is to be loved by God.

And I pray that as every day you get strengthened in that knowledge and you become more convinced of how good it is to be loved by God, I pray that you grow.

I pray that you grow strengthened in your inner being.

I pray that you grow in your faith.

He says, in freedom and in c with confidence, you can approach God and ask for whatever it is.

As long as it's in accordance with his will, ask whatever you wish.

Some of us are not praying powerful prayers enough.

We're not asking enough of God.

He he am I am I so little that you can't pray bigger prayers than that?

Are you do you lack confidence that I can and want to and will do that?

Some of us have to level up in the way that we're praying.

He wants us to pray with freedom and in confidence.

And he says, I pray that you grow in your faithfulness, in your faith, and in your fellowship.

Pray with one another, pray for one another, see one another and see that person's burden as your own.

Grow in fellowship.

Recognize that you need one another because we can't grow alone.

And then he says, I pray that you show.

I pray that you show the manifold wisdom of God in your fruitfulness.

By your fruit you will be known.

Show off about who God is in the fruitfulness of your life.

Show off about who God is in your faithfulness, even if it seems like something that doesn't matter, like doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

There's someone watching.

There's someone looking at your witness, there's someone that's being blessed by the way that you are faithfully serving, the way that you are being faithfully obedient unto God, the way that you are faithfully loving, the way that you are faithfully forgiving, faithfully being patient, faithfully serving, right?

This is your fruitfulness.

The church is called to be God's witness to the world.

Some of you have heard that saying, your life might be the only or the first Bible that anyone ever reads.

Your life is preaching the gospel.

Your life is meant to put on display the manifold wisdom of God.

Your life is meant to make people go, dang.

God must be real.

We're called to be rooted and established in God's love, firmly rooted and strongly established like a mighty tree.

In fact, in Isaiah 61:3, God's people are described as oaks of righteousness, oak trees of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61:3

We're not flimsy palm trees.

We're not called to look cute but not have much power.

We're called to be mighty oaks of righteousness, firmly rooted and established.

And if I were to contextualize us for here, um here in beautiful Northern California, we could say that we're called to be like redwoods of righteousness.

Redwoods of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Jeremiah 29 tells us that the people of God, we're called to seek the shalom, the peace, the well-being, the flourishing of the city.

Wherever we are, the city around us, we should be seeking the peace, the flourishing, the shalom of the city.

Through our prayers, through our words, through our actions, through our love, through seeking justice, through advocating, for fighting for and for looking out for one another.

We're called to seek the flourishing of our city.

Last week, Pastor Krista was at an event and she told me that she was looking around the room and she felt both blessed and burdened by what she saw.

Because she was at this event and she was like, oh wow, there's there's a lot of Midtowners here.

There's a lot of Midtowners here and they're doing good things.

Man, we we have a lot of Midtowners who are in different sectors of the world doing some good things.

But then she said, I felt burdened too.

Because we have a responsibility to steward what we do together.

There are many of us in this room that if we got together and we really prayed and focused in on what we could do to change systems, to live differently, to make Sacramento a totally different place, we really could.

If we really, the people of God, got together and we really stewarded the gifts and the opportunities and the access that we have, then the devil should be scared of us.

And I'm gonna ask that you all pray with us that God would give us wisdom to know how to put God's manifold wisdom on display through us.

The city of Sacramento really could be transformed by praying people who work together and work together to put the manifold wisdom of God on display.

Can I tell you a few other things that I've learned about redwoods?

They're not just impressive because of how tall they can grow.

It's the how and the why and what happens beneath the surface of how they grow that helps determine how they're able to grow and how they're able to keep growing.

Well, first of all, redwoods are flexible.

Someone was just telling me about this in uh in in after first service.

I have this whole list, and she was like, You forgot flexible.

They're really tall and they're strong.

But once you get to a certain height when the wind blows, you need to be able to remain flexible to not break off, right?

So they're flexible, but they're also fire resistant.

So we know that California is prone to forest fires, right?

But it's not easy to burn down a forest full of redwoods because they're fire resistant, they've got thick skin.

Literally, they've got thick skin.

Their bark can grow about a foot deep, and their their bark is spongy, and their bark lacks resin.

So resin is present in uh in the bark of a lot of other kinds of trees, and resin is flammable.

That's why they're good for firewood, right?

But not redwoods, they don't have resin, and so therefore, they're not highly flammable.

There could be a fire going on over here and an ember or a spark goes over there, but they got thick, spongy, good skin that is fire resistant.

So, second, redwoods have strong cores, they are strengthened in their inner being, they have high water content in their trunk and they retain water well.

So their branches and their needles, they do not burn easily.

They still stay well hydrated, they still stay well moisturized.

They are filled with the fullness of water, and therefore they do not burn easily.

Redwoods also have high levels of tannins, which is a chemical compound that protect the wood from insects and fungi and rot.

They got on the full armor of God.

So insects and fungi and rot, they try to get up on a redwood and they soon figure out oh, I can't grow here because this environment does not suit me.

Fungi and rot and resin, these these pests cannot find a home in a redwood because it is not pH balanced for them.

So I wonder if we've got a pest problem in our hearts, I wonder if we need to investigate what is in our hearts that have allowed insects and fungi and rot to make a home there.

Maybe we gotta figure out our pH balance.

And the final thing that I want to point out about redwoods is this.

Remember, redwood trees are the tallest living things on earth, and they you can they can reach heights of over 350 feet.

But despite their massive height, you would think that I was gonna say, and their roots go really deep.

They don't.

They actually only go about six feet deep.

For a 350-foot tree, that's not all that deep.

But here's the secret: they only go down about six to twelve feet deep.

But their secret to having vitality and strength is that their roots spread wide.

Their roots, one tree's roots, can go the length of a football field.

And not only do their roots grow wide, they don't grow alone.

So you know what happens with redwood trees?

Their roots, underneath the surface, their roots are interconnected.

They grow together.

They get stability and strength from growing, intertwining their roots together.

They don't grow alone.

Beneath the surface, each tree is sustained and upheld by a larger, wider, deeply connected system of roots that enable them to go high.

I don't have to connect the dots, as you know, you all know, right?

This we're called to be a forest full of redwood trees, right?

Now I said that was my final point, but here's a final subpoint B.

Not only are redwoods steady because they are intricately interconnected in the intertwining of their roots, say that five times, right?

They are intricately interconnected in the intertwining of their roots, and they are also strong because they know how to share with one another.

If there is a strong, healthy tree, and the tree beside it is lacking some nutrients, it needs some help, because of their interconnected root system, a healthy tree can actually share its nutrients with the tree beside it.

So the tree beside it will benefit from the health and the strength of the tree beside it.

That's why it's so important to have community around you.

They were like living out the the axe, the you know, the early church where no one went with need.

If there was a tree in need, they know how to share.

It's through the interlocking root system that they can stay stable, grow tall, and grow for a long time.

So I'm gonna leave you with a question to wrestle with this week.

Who is in your root system?

Who are you in community with?

Who are you sharing nutrients with?

And I'm not just talking about who you vibe with, who you like hanging out with, but ask yourself this question: Who can I get in community with so that I can gain wisdom from them?

Who challenges you to grow?

Who can tell you about yourself?

Who can tell you, hold up a mirror in love and challenge you?

Who can show you who you really are with the love of Christ?

Some people are in your root system because they challenge you to grow in faith and in grace and in patience as well.

So it's not just about who you like hanging out with.

We need one another.

We all have deficits, but we also have strengths and we benefit from one another.

So if you don't have this community right now, ask God for it.

Ask God to open up your eyes to see maybe I've been limited in my vision.

How can I grow in my root system?

I need wiser, stronger, more mature people around me that have an extensive root system so I can persevere, so that I can be steady, so that I can be enduring and firmly rooted and established, and I can be that for someone else as well.

So if you're not in a group, get in a group.

You can go to our website, sign up for a group, look for a group.

If there's not one that fits, well, maybe God might be calling you to start one.

If you're not in a class, men's and women's women's groups, we have classes, we have groups that you can join every Tuesday night.

If you're not serving, join a team.

Go to the connect booth after this.

Figure out, hey, where can I serve that'll help get you connected?

Serve, give, pray.

Stick around after church.

Don't hurry off to your car too quick.

Stick around and talk to a couple people.

I know this is challenging for the introverts.

This is not my struggle.

But I am saying to the introverts, how you gonna love people if you're never around people?

Get to know some of your brothers and sisters here.

Just challenge yourself to stay a little bit longer to get to know somebody.

And then to extroverts, to the extroverts in the room, including myself.

We may have to work on our listening skills.

Let's not dominate the conversations.

Let's let's get real good at listening and listening with intent.

But here's what I'm praying: I'm praying that us, you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

You and I are called to put on display the manifold wisdom of God.

And when you and I are rooted and established in love, we have power together.

And part of how you and I and the world around us can grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ is through the way that we love one another.

So I pray that you would know the love of God.

I pray that you would grow in the love of God.

And I pray that we as a church that we would show the love of God.

I want to close today by giving a benediction.

A benediction is just a short prayer of blessing.

But I want to ask in response, can can all of us who are able, can we stand to our feet right now?

Stand and if you're able also to hold out your hands, you can either hold out your hands like this in a posture of reception, or you can hold out your hands like this, ascribing glory back to God.

This is often what happens during worship.

Sometimes people hold out their hands and say, Lord, I just want to receive your love.

Sometimes people hold out their hands and say, God, I just want to give you the praise that you deserve.

Whatever posture you choose right now, this prayer is gonna cover all those things.

And if you're standing, we can picture our feet firmly planted, being firmly rooted and established in love.

We wanna be like those oaks of righteousness.

We want to be the redwoods of righteousness.

And we want to receive more knowledge of who God is.

And we want to display the splendor and the wisdom and the glory and the love of God with our lives.

So this is our prayer, this is the benediction.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever and ever.

Amen.