Sermon Central
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Spiritual Growth
Contributed by Delray Lentz on Nov 15, 2023 (message contributor)
Summary: o Do you have an intentional plan for your own spiritual growth? o Do you know what spiritual growth is? o Have you asked God how you can serve in His church and in His Kingdom.
Last week after our church meeting, Crystal prayed us out, and as she was praying the word “nesting” came to her. What a perfect way to describe the situation for CPC and perhaps THE church as well.
Also, during our meeting, discipleship was discussed.
CPC is a young church in terms of our launch date in Jan 2020.
As a church, our vision has been intentional about a few things. You might want to write these down.
• Giving
• Fellowship
• Discipleship
It is time for us to LEVEL UP!
Long before the official launch date of CPC in Jan 2020, Pastor Jeff Reynold had a vision of CPC being a giving church, and we have been intentional with that.
Both within our church walls and our community.
• Individuals, as well as other ministries.
o Mention the charity event.
o “Giving” isn’t only about $.
• But it is time to LEVEL UP y’all, in our giving.
Fellowship
Have you ever been part of a church that a good portion of the congregation arrives just a “the bell rings” or even after service begins?
How about as soon as service ends everyone scatters like roaches when the light is turned on?
Fellowship is about many things, and one of those things is trust.
It is virtually impossible to trust someone if you don’t know them.
You build trust with people when you spend time with them.
It brings Lisa and me such joy to see almost everyone stay and fellowship with one another after the sermon ends each week.
That’s church y’all!
It also amazes us how every time we have a meeting, almost everyone shows up!
That is important on so many levels.
But guess what…we can still LEVEL UP.
The third area of intentionality is Discipleship.
• Do you realize that giving and fellowship are an important part of discipleship. Think about it:
o Yes, Jesus gave the ultimate when He hung on that cross for us, but we are shown, before that, how he gave by pouring into others!
o There are many instances where we are told how Jesus fellowshipped with His disciples.
o He was discipling the disciples!
• If you haven’t closely examined our church logo, it speaks discipleship. Go back, look at our logo and dwell on that a bit.
• We better believe in our hearts, that we can LEVEL UP in discipleship.
So where am I going with all this?
I’m glad you asked.
I believe, in order to LEVEL UP in discipleship, which includes giving and fellowship, we must corporeally experience spiritual growth.
As a church body, we must have spiritual growth.
Today, I’d like us to look at:
• A brief explanation of spiritual growth
• Why the need for spiritual growth
• And, a plan for spiritual growth.
Since today’s message is topical, we will reference quite a bit of scripture. I know, we hardly ever do that, right?
But here’s the good news:
• When someone asks you about CPC, you can confidently say “we are a bible-based church”, can’t you!
Let’s begin with a brief explanation of spiritual growth.
This can be laid out with 3 passages of scripture.
• 2nd Peter 3:18 “but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen”
• Philippians 1: 3-6 (read from my bible)
• 2nd Peter 1:5-8m (read it, then read it again)
? Before reading the second time say “listen to this progression that Peter lays out”.
• I said you’d hear me us the word intentional today right?
• Be intentional, and go back and study those three verses, let them begin to abide in you.
Now let us examine:
The need for spiritual growth.
For me, the need for spiritual growth is so that I can be empowered by the Holy Spirit to:
• Be witnesses as commanded in Acts 1:8
• Be disciples as commanded in Matthew 28:19
• And to share God’s love as illustrated in John 3:16
As I was prepping for today’s message I had no idea why I said this last week.
Here’s what I said:
• Sometimes, I think the only scripture I need to know is:
o John 3:16…for God so loved the world
o Matthew 28:19…Go and make disciples in all the nations
o Acts 1:8…Go be my witness throughout the world
• But then, my spiritual being begins to crave a deeper knowledge of God. I want to get to know Him better.
• …And this is how today’s message came about.
o My craving to know my Jesus!
Oddly enough, I completely reversed those. Not sure if that has any significance or not!
So, the 1st reason for the need for spiritual growth is:
