From The Ground Up II, From Acorns To Oak Trees

Once again, good morning. It's great to be together and worship the Lord and allow his life to invade ours. In his book entitled The Power of Purpose, Richard Leder writes a very powerful thought about purpose. I want you to follow along, it's up on the screen as I read it. He writes, purpose is the deepest dimension within us, our central core, our essence, where we have a profound sense of who we are, where we've come from and where we're going. Purpose is the quality we choose to shape our lives around. Purpose is a source of energy and direction. Now, Leder's comments in his book that he writes on purpose deal with a few, I think, important things that we can all resonate with. Let's just highlight a couple of them. Like, for instance, purpose has to do with our central core or essence. It's something about us that's deep. It's who we are, often maybe not even expressible in words, but you know it when it's happening to you. It's also something that develops a profound sense in our lives of direction and where we're going. It's also something that shapes our lives. What's really important to us in life is what shapes our lives, often without us even knowing it. And then finally, purpose is a source of tremendous energy and direction in our lives. When we're living on purpose, have you ever experienced this? When you're really living out your purpose, there's energy there. There's energy to do the things that God has called you to do and be the person that God's called you to be. And so this morning, we want to continue to look at living and growing on purpose, not haphazardly, but really living intentionally the life that God has given us. And I'd like to give you a maxim this morning, something that would sort of set the table for the rest of what we're going to talk about today. Here's the maxim that will drive us today. The more purposeful one lives, the more effectual one becomes. The more purposeful one lives their life, the more effectual that person will become. Or another way to say it is, purpose and effect are connected. The more I live my life on purpose, the more my life affects those people around me and the world in which God has created me to live. And we can all see this, that when something is done on purpose, there's a greater effect to it. It's like when a close friend of you comes to you on your birthday, and instead of bringing you something, says, Oh man, was today your birthday? What would you rather have someone do, especially a close friend? Probably arrive with a well-thought-out gift that somehow speaks to your relationship. That's why I think surprises are so important, whether they be a birthday or anything else, because in a surprise, as it's unfolding, you see that the people who are surprising you have done it on purpose. They were working behind the scenes to get all this ready for you. It's a tremendous thing. I was over in Cranberry this week at the Sunoco station, and I went in to get a fountain drink, and I went in and got it like you normally do, and went up to the counter, and the person working at the counter's name was Amy, and she said, I just want you to know you don't have to pay for that today, it's free. I said, Huh? She said, No, really, it's free. And I said, No, wait a minute, Amy, wait a minute, I don't want a free ride just because of my looks, okay? Why were you laughing there? I said, Amy, she said, No, really, I do it every day. I choose one person, and I surprise them by just giving them the drink for free. And I said, Wow, Amy, that is really good customer service. In fact, I know a few people I'm going to tell what you did do. So now maybe you could go to Cranberry this week, and this particular Sunoco, and if you see Amy there, ask her, Am I the one? Could I be the one today? I'm sure she would appreciate that. I was gone for three weeks starting my doctorate this August, and when I got back, the staff had left some things in my office as sort of a, Hey, welcome back. What do you think they left? I mean, all kinds of different salsa, chi-chis, Taco Bell, Newman, all kinds of different ones, and I thought to myself, Man, you know, while I was gone, they planned this and did it. The fact of the matter is, the power of a surprise increases when it's performed on purpose. Just think about it. The power of a surprise increases when it's performed on purpose. Give him a hand. I mean, Tim, Tim Idris. Tim, tell everybody, Tim goes to North Way, what do you do? What do you do during the day? I work at Geneva College, and I am a campus minister. And what do you do, I mean, specifically? Like, does the rope have anything to do with what you do? A little bit. And what I do is I work in an adventure-based learning program there, and it's part of my campus ministry, and using activities like rappelling. Right. You sure didn't want to run out of rope this morning, did you? Wow. Never want to rappel off a short rope. Amen to that. There's a maxim to live by. So basically, I just tried to help point others to God by using experiential activities like this. Give him a hand. Now, the power of the surprise is all that had to happen for that to happen this morning. That was working behind the scenes. Well, here's the deal. Behind the scenes here at our church, God's been surprising us. He's been sort of getting things ready, and somewhat like the lights going off and something dropping out of the sky, He's revealed something of a renewed vision to us that Pastor Jay shared last week of how He wants our church to move forward with purpose. And it's a powerful surprise because it has to do with our community living out the purposes that Jesus left His church with more intentionally. And we talked about these things last week that are made up from the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. I want you to see these five purposes. Go ahead and put them up. The five purposes of the church and the five purposes of our church are, number one, to connect. And we talked about this last week. And remember, connecting means becoming a member of. It means giving your life in a way to something. And I think it's important that we remember how Pastor Jay framed this. It's not just simply being a member of North Way, like you're a member of, say, a health club. But it's being a member of something like your body has members. We all work together. We are part of a living organism with Christ at the center. And so to connect means to be a member of His body. And today we're going to talk about the second purpose, growing in Christ. And the third, which we'll touch on today, and we'll talk about next week for the entire theme of the morning, is serving, giving away the particular gifts that God has given you, and then reaching out beyond myself with the very message that has changed my life, that other people need to hear the gospel of Christ, and then to worship God with my entire being. We want these purposes to infect everybody in our church, everybody. Now you might say, well, haven't we been doing these things already? And the answer to that is absolutely we have. The renewed vision that God is surprising us with is not do something totally new, but rather do what you've been doing with greater intention. That's what really the purposes of God for us at this point in our church are really about, more intentional use of God's gifts to practice and live out the purposes that He's put before us. All of us together, creatively collaborating around what Christ has for us. I mean, we all yearn, don't we, as people who call this home, to have a place where people are connected in relationship, growing in maturity, serving with the heart of Jesus, reaching His love, and expressing all of that in a life of devotion. Can I get an amen on that? That's the purpose of not only our church, but the church of Christ. And this morning we want to look at the second of those purposes, which we have sort of put out there as the trunk, the place out of which other things will grow, and that's the idea of growth and maturity. So if you have your Bible, turn to Mark chapter 4. Mark chapter 4. And here in this short but very powerful parable that Jesus teaches, we're going to see something of how we grow as people who want to follow Christ. What is the process that we all have to enter if we want to be a Christ follower? Jesus does something in this parable that we've already actually seen. Pastor Jay alluded to it before the mind. He takes a physical object that everybody is used to in the physical world and relates it to spiritual things. And what I love about Jesus in the fact that he always did that was he was always trying to bring those two worlds together so that your physical life and your spiritual life met. And you really learn that Jesus is in every moment of your life, no matter where you are, wanting to invade that with his life. So he used everyday things to teach and to show that God is interested in us and wants to pour his life into us. We're going to see that as we walk through this this morning. Mark chapter 4, verse 30. Jesus is talking about growth in all of the parables that come before this one when he writes, verse 30, What shall we say the kingdom of God is like? Or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants with such big branches that all of the birds of the air can perch in its shade. Now I want to just look at the process of growth as Jesus sort of unpacks it here in this parable in three ways and sort of reverse the process. Let's fast forward to see sort of what the end point of growth is first and then work our way back to the process. So if you will, let's look down the tree. We're talking about things growing up, but let's look down it for just a minute. What is the consequence of growth? What is the result of growth in my life? And I want to suggest to you this morning that the consequence of growth, the result of growth is wrapped up in one little word that Jesus uses right at the end. It's the word shade, shade. The consequence of growth in a person's life or in a plant's life, in a tree's life is the consequence of shade. Shade means something. It tells you something about the tree. In fact, shade is an indicator that the tree is really growing, is really maturing, because its branches are getting big enough, the leaves are coming out, and it is actually becoming what it was meant to be and do what it was meant to do, provide shade. When a tree gives off shade, it tells you something about the tree's health. There's health to the tree because it's giving something away. I want to suggest to you that that's also a good definition for a person growing in the purposes of Christ. Number one, they are healthy. Not perfect, but healthy and growing in that health. That means they are becoming the person Christ is creating them to be. See, that's going to be so important next week when we talk about serving. That there's something in you that God wants you to get out and express to the world that reveals part of who He is. So a consequence of growth is health. Health inwardly, health in your own life, but then number two, as we've already talked about, the consequence of growth is effect. You affect other people. Or, listen, you help them do the same thing. You help others become the person God is creating them to be. Or as literal as I can say this, you become shade for other people. Your life becomes shade. Isn't that what we really want? We want to help other people. We desire for other people to experience the life of Christ. And when we're healthy and we're able to experience the life of God, that in turn allows us to reach out and be shade for another person. We've all experienced someone in our lives who's been shade, who's been a restorative, renewing person in our life. Or actually, maybe we've even experienced someone who in a really good sense of the word helped us prune a few things off our tree. How many of you are maybe being pruned right now? You know who God invites into the process of helping another person be pruned? People who have been pruned. And people who are willing to help others be pruned, even when it's hard, even when it's difficult, with an attitude of grace. We were meant to grow. We were meant, therefore, to provide shade, which means we're growing in health. We're becoming who we were meant to be and doing what we were meant to do, which is to provide that shade so that others can experience the same thing that we've experienced. Sometimes I'll hear people say, you know, why do we have to get any bigger here? Aren't we big enough? And the ironic thing about that kind of a statement is that often the person that's saying that to me was a person five years ago who needed someone to reach out to them so that they could change. But now, we're kind of going kind of comfortable. I'm in. Let's stop. See, maturity means continuing to reach out and help others do the same. Help others live and experience the life that Christ has given. Shade is an indicator of health. So that's sort of the consequence, but then how does this happen? Well, it happens through a process where several things meet each other. We're only going to look at two of them. The first one, the first thing that happens is a seed must be planted. A seed must be planted. Oh, I missed a few things. Go back. Sorry. Keep going. There we go. Basically, we've already said this, but let me say it so that nobody, you know, says, what was that line that you forgot to talk about? Okay? Getting to shade, meaning getting to the point where we're serving and giving away what God has given us, means we have to enter a process. We have to enter a process in our lives. And that process is growing. Growing. Growing is the bridge between what could happen in your life and it actually happening in your life. Growing is the bridge. If you want to mature, that is, be someone different over here than you are over here, the bridge to get there is growth. The bridge to get there, the Bible calls, transformation. It does remind me of, this week I taught my youngest son, Andrew, his first piano lesson. And I kind of wondered if I ought to do this, you know, or maybe we should just have another teacher, you know, so I don't end up killing him or getting mad, you know, at him for things. But we're going to at least do the first year and see how it goes. So we had just gotten a piano, so I was at the piano at our house, just, you know, kind of dinking around, not, you know, just playing some things. And I got up and went into the kitchen and Drew sat down and he started playing. I think what he thought was as close to what I was doing, he was going to do. And this is what he was doing. And he was excited. I mean to tell you, he was all over that. And then I thought to myself, you are in for one rude awakening tomorrow when we have our first lesson. Because this was our first lesson, okay now, Drew, and we went through some things in the beginning book and, you know, here's the note, and here's how you, you know. And Drew, here's the first song you're going to learn. Let me play it for you. Now remember, here's the first song, Drew. And I could tell inside he was thinking, that's it? That's the whole first song? We so want to get the process ahead of where we are, especially in our growth with Christ. It starts as a seed. It starts as a seed, meaning it starts small and grows. And that is so important, especially in our world where everything has been quickened, you know. You go to the speaker, you say what you want, you go to the window, you get it. That's not what people thought of when they thought of growth in plants and food in the first century. It was a process that they had to enter into. And they watched it. And they watched nothing. Where is it? It's under there somewhere. Some of us are in a place in our growth where you can't see any. But here's what I want to say to you today. If you're open to God, you're growing. If you can't see it, chances are it's still underground. It doesn't start above the ground, does it? So when it's still under the ground, which by the way is a very important part of the growth process, when it's still underground, what's your role? Come on, it starts with a W. Yeah, some of you say water. That first service was big on water. What's another one? Wait. Notice nobody wanted to say wait, right? Because it's a hard thing to do. Wait. As you think about the seed in your life today of God's life, think about is it underneath the ground right now and I need to wait for God to bring that up. Jesus says that the seed of God is literally God's life and way. Meaning it is the way that God designed life to be lived and it's deposited in a willing heart. The seed goes into a willing heart. Now, the word life, Jesus uses a phrase in a lot of his parables. It was one of his most favorite ways to talk about God's life. He called it the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is like a seed. God's life is what we often refer to, and so does Scripture, as eternal life. And that's the life that is represented by the seed going into one's heart. Now, it's very important that you understand that eternal life is more than just living forever. That may be part of it, but eternal life has far more to do with how we're living our lives now, how we're experiencing the grace of God in our lives now, as much as it does what will happen when we die. Jesus looked at the people around him and said, the kingdom of heaven is right here, right now. And this is where God wants us to see that his life is not only future. His life doesn't begin when you die, but his life gives potency so that you can live now. Now. You can experience life now. You can experience life eternal now. And that is a life that God uses through the Spirit of God to teach us how to live. And we experience that on a daily basis when we're open to the seed. But don't expect to be able to play like Jeff tomorrow, because it's a process. Don't expect to just grow instantaneously into an oak tree. You know? It's a mysterious thing how a seed becomes that. And it is a mysterious thing how God's kingdom, God's word, God's eternal life becomes a life that others then experience the shade of. But it's a process. It's a process. Just to further sort of solidify this, the seed of God in you is God's potential in your life. It's God's potential for you, and it is something that must be activated by you. Now this is the mystery of how God works. The mystery is God could zap us into maturity. How many of you would have gone for that plan? I would have. I'm willing. Just zap me. It's over. But instead of God zapping me into growth, God invites me into the process of growth. Or God includes me in the growth process. I'm part of the deal. In fact, you could make a pretty strong case that if you on a consistent basis, or me on a consistent basis, aren't really open to growth, chances are we're not going to really experience all that much. God could zap us, but instead he invites us to participate in his life. What piece of life is God willing to activate? What piece of his life is he willing to activate in your life today? He wants to move you. The word in scripture is to transform you from here to here, and this is an ongoing process. What is that for you? What is that for me? The bridge is growth. Growth begins when this mysterious seed goes into the ground called the kingdom of heaven, and begins to grow. First hidden, but then grows into something that is not only seen, but experienced by other people. But we are all part of the process. We must activate, if you will. Not because we control God, but because that's how he designed it. He designed his life to be activated in people who want it. That's why saying yes to Jesus is so important. And many of us have said yes to Jesus right here in this room, and begun a process, looked up and met Pastor Jay's eyes, or someone else, and said, I recognize my need for God's life, the seed of God's life. Now, after that initial yes, remember, there's a whole life of yeses right after that one. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, we still must live out the activation process. It's an ongoing process of saying yes to Jesus. The Bible calls that being filled with the Spirit. When you're filled with the Spirit, you are continually saying yes again and again, and opening yourself up again to the life of Christ. And that's sort of a lead into the last piece that we want to look at, where the seed meets the soil. The seed meets the soil. The seed is not going to grow, at least to its potential, without being firmly rooted in soil. And soil, for you and for me, in the metaphor that Jesus is teaching here, is our life. Our lives, both individually and corporately, are the soil that the life of God, eternal life, goes into so it can be grown up. Your circumstances, and your relationships, and all the difficulties, and the things we face day after day after day, they're all part of the seedbed, you know, the fertile soil that God wants to use to change us. So every day matters. Every moment matters. In fact, here's how I'd like you to think of it this week. Everywhere I go is a field for me to grow. Everywhere. Everywhere I go, there's a field. My life is a field for me to grow, for me to experience the love of Christ. I want you to hear a testimony this morning from a couple who is growing. And you know how when you have kids and they grow, and all of a sudden, one day you come home and their pants are like this? Have you ever noticed that? And it's like, what happened? We just bought those. Well, when I think of Pat and Michelle Crowley, and I think of their spiritual journey, and what God's been doing in their life over the last couple of years, that's what I think of. I think of people who are just outgrowing the clothes that God is giving them. So give them a welcome as they come to share their testimony this morning. As they share their testimony, I want you to listen for God's seed, his life, planted in them, and then their soil, how they responded to the seed planted. Hi again. How are you? Good morning. When Pastor Dave first asked us to speak at the Sunday morning service, my wife and I turned completely pale. Michelle almost fell out of her chair, and I instantly started to sweat. However, we could not speak at the time due to family commitments. So several months later, he asked us again, and here we are. I never thought in a million years I would ever have a story to tell, especially to a church family of this size, but here it goes. It was the spring of 1996. Everything seemed to be great. Michelle and I had known each other for six years now, and had been married for a little over six months. We both had great careers, financially we were secure, and had great friends to share time with. At the time, without us really knowing it, we both felt that something was missing in our lives. Not fully understanding what that something was, we decided to start a family of our own. So we began what would turn out to be a long, emotional, life-changing journey. After several months of trying to conceive, with no success, we made an appointment with a fertility specialist. However, we were told not only were we too young to worry about this, but we also needed to wait at least one year before they would even consider consulting with us. One year later, we went back to the specialist and began to take the necessary steps to see what, if anything, was wrong. Our spiritual relationship was not very strong either. We were both raised as Catholics, and my impression of being a good Christian meant attending church on Sunday. I had never read scripture, nor ever owned a Bible. Growing up as a child, religion was not often talked about. The only evidence of our faith was a cross hanging on the wall that I made in fourth grade, and a statue of baby Jesus in my parents' bedroom. My mother would often take us kids to church on Sundays, but that was about it. We did not say grace at meals, there were no bedtime prayers, and reading scripture was something that only priests did. My interpretation of going to heaven meant just obeying the Ten Commandments and trying to be a good person. As I got older, I fell away from the church even more. While at Clarion College, I periodically attended a Catholic church, mostly to impress some girl named Michelle. Right there. And it worked. It worked. She would often ask if we could pray together out loud. I thought that was... I would pray in the car, asking God to turn the light green so I could get to work on time. And I would pray during the pennant games in hopes that they would score a goal. I had no idea what it meant to be a Christ follower, let alone that I fully understand the grace of God. I continued to fall more and more distant from the church. In December of 1996, we had just bought a house in the South Hills, and Michelle was becoming increasingly more emotional about our ordeal, and also wanted to get more connected with the church. Together, we attended many Catholic churches in the South Hills to find one that would help us understand our faith better. Finally, we joined a small Catholic church near our home. I attended regularly on Sunday morning with my wife with some resistance, of course, and Michelle eventually joined the choir, and I began to sleep in. We were moving on two years of unsuccessful attempts to conceive, and as our situation started to intensify, so did our emotions. It had seemed that during this time all of our close friends started to have children. While we were truly happy for their good fortune, we could not help to wonder why we couldn't have children. We are good people. We would make great parents. Why is this happening to us? And where was God in all of this? Yet probably a better question to ask would have been where is our heart in all of this? Over the past two years, we had tried several different medications and uterine inseminations and still had no success. To this day, I can still feel the anxiety that was built up waiting for the results of the pregnancy test and the disappointments when they were negative. Many times when Michelle was emotional and would break down in tears, I was the strong one providing comfort and support, and when I was emotional, she was the strong one. There was still something very big missing in our lives. I'll never forget one fall day when Michelle received a phone call from one of our distant friends. He proceeded to share with her that they were expecting their first. When Michelle hung up the phone, it was thrown across the room and she wrote down a cry out loud and asked, Why God? Why are you doing this to me? What did I do wrong? It was the emotional breakdown that was being built up inside for years. When I came home from work and asked how her day was, it took no more than two seconds for the tears to come again. We sat down on the steps together and with our arms wrapped tight, we cried together, feeling helpless and hopeless. It was our darkest day. Several months later, we received a phone call from our good friends, Mike and Linda Ripper, inviting us to an evening service called Kai Ross at their church. A new sermon series will be starting the next week and they thought we might want to check it out. Pat wasn't as eager as I was to go, but he at least agreed to give it a chance. Mike and Linda's invitation was an answer to my prayer and proved to be a turning point in our relationship with Christ. We attended North Way service the very next Sunday, and as God would have it, the message began from the book of James, verse 2. Consider pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds. Not only did we begin to gain a new perspective from God's word, we began in a small way to accept our childless situation. In addition to Pastor Day's teaching, we also found ourselves being connected to other members of North Way's community who were able to provide us with sound advice and direction. Count it all joy became our holy heart repetition to make it through the next several disappointing attempts to conceive. And at this point, we had tried three more in uterine insemination, but the doctors could still not find any reason why we were unable to conceive. We continued to attend North Way. Over the next year, I noticed a huge change in my husband. For one, he was excited to go to church. Other than the occasional business trip, he never even considered missing a Sunday. He asked for a Bible and started using it. Pat also got involved in a small men's group. He was applying what he learned on Sunday to his career, our marriage, everything. I noticed a change in myself, too. I was able to slowly let go of the anger, frustration, and pain that consumed me for so long. I no longer felt flawed and inadequate as a woman. Instead, a peace filled my heart. God was changing us both. Our relationship, which had always been strong, became even stronger now that Jesus was part of it. We began praying together. We attended retreats, read scripture, and began journaling. Our dialogue changed, and so did the way we handled other problems in our lives. We started praying for God's will to be done, and not ours. We surrendered what we wanted for ourselves and let God's plan unfold. We had learned by this point that God truly had a plan for our lives, and we began to put our full trust in Him. We also learned that God was teaching us a lesson in what it meant to wait and what it meant to have faith. Our spiritual relationship was stronger now than it had ever been in both our lives. This is what the something missing was, an intimate relationship with Christ. In December of 1999, our doctor found endometriosis and was able to remove 50% of it in a laparoscopic procedure. We were actually glad for this news because it answered some questions as to the nature of our infertility. We were faced with some new decisions at this point. We could schedule another in uterine insemination, try in vitro fertilization, or walk away and do nothing. After much prayer and consideration, we decided to try the IVF procedure, knowing it would be our last and final attempt. We wanted to bring closure to this situation. Regardless of the outcome, we knew God would answer our prayer. I began preparing for the IVF procedure in January of 2000. First, there were more tests, followed by a strict regimen of medication. In March, I underwent the final step, which was to remove and then replace the embryos back into my body. We completely surrendered our hearts and will to God as we waited with hope in the next two weeks. When I came home on March 21st, I noticed the light blinking on the answering machine. I knew it was the nurse calling with the results. Pat wasn't home yet, so I waited patiently for the next five hours. Really, I thought I was going to die, knowing that the answer to our prayer was right at my fingertips. Pat and I prayed once again before we pushed that button. We felt strongly that if this was not God's will, then he would begin to open other avenues for us to pursue. As tense as that moment was, we were completely at peace and prepared for either outcome. I began to sob when the nurse congratulated us on a positive test result, and I'm happy to say that I'm now just beginning the last trimester of my pregnancy. When we started into this journey four years ago, we didn't give much thought to the role God played in our lives or circumstances. We knew and believed that he was there, but he seemed so far away. Now we realize that he was always as close as the air we breathe. All that time, he was preparing us, inviting us, and pulling us closer to him. God's love carried us every step of the way, and once we were able to surrender our hearts to his will, we were able to receive his overflowing grace. We recently read an excerpt from our Daily Bread, which quoted, Knowing about God is fascinating, but knowing God personally is life-changing. We know that for our experience, God has changed our lives forever, and for that we will be eternally grateful. The soil of your life is the place where God's seed goes in. The difficulty as well as the joy is a place for the life of God to go in. So therefore, the condition of my soil matters. In other words, the way I li