Sermon Tone Analysis

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Emotion
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Joy
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Analytical
Confident
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Social Tendencies
Openness
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Extraversion
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Anger
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HOW GOD GROWS US
*eph 4:14-16*
*1271*
* *
!
INTRODUCTION
1.  God designs us to grow physically.
We are born a helpless dependent infant.
The goal is to become a mature adult.
How do we grow?
We need proper nutrition, love, life experiences, education experiences, and support from other people.
You put these together with time and we grow.
Although we come in various shapes and sizes, the goal is the same: maturity.
That’s the norm.
2.
God designs us to grow spiritually.
When we are second born, we are spiritual babies, often just as helpless and dependent as in our physical birth.
God designed us to grow from spiritual infancy into spiritually maturing adults.
How does God grow us?
How does He mature us into fully passionate, competent and complete disciples?
3.
This morning I want us to look at 4 ways God grows us.
These are not the only ways but they will give us a start in our maturation process.
Let’s begin by asking the HS to show us this morning where we are in our own stage of growth.
Let’s ask him to help us be open to various ways He wants to grow us so we can imitate Christ in our daily lives.
!
THE CHALLENGE
1.
Our Scripture reading gives us the challenge:  don’t be tossed back and forth as infants.
We are spiritually born as infants but don’t stay in diapers and sucking on a bottle.
Don’t be content with other people cutting up your spiritual meat and spoon-feeding.
God designed us to grow in knowledge and practice of faith so we can come like Christ.
This passage gives us the hope that we can reach the level of maturity that God desires for us.
2.
The goal: Be like Christ.
Christ is our measure of our maturity.
God designs us to be conformed to the image of Christ.
He had never given us a command that we are able to obey as we surrender to Him.  *Every one of us can imitate Him in thought, word and deed.*
Do you believe that?
We must put more trust in the HS than in the world.
To achieve the goal, we must grow.
How does God grow us?
 
! I.  GOD GROWS US THROUGH SUFFERING 
 
1.
God grows us through suffering.
That would not be our choice, would it?
We prefer a life free of pain and suffering.
We prefer to grow on the beach not in the briar patch.
Most of us reject suffering.
We don’t just want relief from it; we want it to go away.
That’s why many Xians don’t grow in the midst of suffering.
The truth is that suffering can make us bitter or better.
The choice is ours.
If we are going to grow through suffering, we must agree *suffering is a reality.*
Christians suffer.
Faith is not a drug that inoculates us against pain and suffering.
No one escapes pain and suffering.
Jesus didn’t and neither shall we.
Jesus was forthright.
John 16:33“* In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart!
I have overcome the world.”
*Peter declares that Jesus suffers so arm ourselves with the same attitude.
This is the way the Mgs puts it.
1 Pet 4:1 *Since Jesus went through everything you’re going through and more, learn to think like him.
Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way.
Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants* (SLIDE).
A friend of mine would say we are either coming out of a crisis or getting ready to have one.
Sufferings are realities.
They come because we live in a sin-infested world.
2.
God never wastes pain.
He uses pain to grow us.
How can something so painful be positive?
Suffering can make us better when we accept it is a reality.
We can grow in suffering when we remember that *God has a plan for our lives.*
God knows what is best for us.
God is all-powerful.
God is sovereign.
Either God causes or permits every experience in life.
That means every pain and suffering you and I experience is as Rick Warren says, “Father Filtered”.
Just like the oil in our car goes thru a filter, our experiences goes thru the Father.
Would God cause something to happen to us that is evil?
Would God permit something unless He has the power to bring good out of it?
No.
The bible reminds us God uses everything in our lives to conform us the image of Christ.
Do you trust God to know what is best for you?
If so, then when sufferings come, they will make you better.
3.
We can become better in the mist of suffering when *we focus on God’s plan rather than the pain.*
Joseph teaches us this.
You remember what he went thru.
His brothers sold him into slavery.
He was put in jail.
Finally released and became # 2 ruler in the land.
He looked back on that experience without revenge against his brothers.
He said this:  you intended it for bad but God intended it for good.
He kept his focus on the plan not the pain.
The bible identifies part of God’s plan is that we have hope.
We have confidence in God.
If we focus on the pain, we’ll get out and get out quickly.
We short circuit the process and become bitter rather than better.
Heb 12:*2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  *
He looked beyond the pain of the Cross and saw the glory.
3.
God can grow us through suffering when we *rejoice in the midst of it*.
We are not thankful for the evil or the suffering.
We are not masochists.
We rejoice because we know that God is with us.
We don’t have to go thru it by ourselves or under our own strength.
We can rejoice because suffering is not meaningless.
It has a purpose and a goal.
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