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The River ChurchSermons

REACH, GATHER, GROW

Grow - Conforming to the Image of Christ

Ryan Story · Sunday, 21 September 2025 · Romans 8:29 · 37:31 · 7,030 words

Romans S22 · 8:29

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Ryan Story, filling in for Pastor Pat at the river, explains that the church's mission is to reach the world with the gospel, gather believers, and grow disciples. He stresses that growing in faith is relational, not merely academic; it requires a personal connection with Christ, not just knowing scripture. The message asks listeners to fill themselves with God's Word, then pour that relational truth into others, and to join growth communities for deeper walk.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

grow 52 pour 35 academic 13 constantly 19 genuinely 13 growth 18 fill 17 relational 8 pat 8 jasmine 7 timothy 11 somebody 21

Topics

Prayer 3 Faith 2 The Gospel 2

Scripture referenced 14

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Matthew 28 7:31 Matthew 28:18 7:35 Philippians 2 15:28 Philippians 2:17 15:28 Romans 16 18:41 Romans 16:20-21 19:03 Romans 16 19:24 Psalms 87 26:21 Romans 8 30:57 Romans 5 30:57 Romans 5:6 30:57 Romans 8:38 31:46 Psalms 23 34:27 Psalms 23 34:42

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Good morning everybody. How's everybody this beautiful fall morning? Let's try that again.

Good morning. How's everybody doing? Maybe I talked too long. So my name is Ryan Story. So

I'm actually the family pastor here at the river. So it's a fancy way of just saying I work with

all of our teams that work with our nursery, with our kids ministry, with our students,

our young adults. So it's a blessing to always just be able to see young people,

next generation kind of joining the church, being a part of the church, sitting in gatherings. It's

actually one of my favorite things ever. But I'm not Pat. So to give you guys a little bit of a

story, some of you may know, some of you may not. But on Thursday, myself and Pastor Caleb were

actually setting up chairs for our Jeremy Camp concert that we were having there. So again,

Jeremy Camp gets a standing ovation. But I'm sitting there with Caleb. We're making sure all

the seats are taken care of. And Pastor Pat calls Caleb. And he says, hey, we're going to the

river. So he's going to be inducing Jasmine soon. So for the time being, Pastor Caleb looked up at

me. He's like, hey, you're going to Walled Lake on Sunday. And I was like, praise God. I love it.

Again, be ready in season and out of season with the defense of the gospel. But for you guys to

know, Pat actually texted this morning. Him and Jasmine were able to welcome a beautiful baby boy

by the name of Cade Uriah. So he's here. He's doing good. But again, that's something to give

up, in my opinion. But I asked Pat, I was like, hey,

dude, as the shepherd, as the pastor of Walled Lake, what can I kind of tell the people of

Walled Lake? And he's like, hey, just ask them to be praying for us, be praying for him, be praying

for your Cade, and be praying for Jasmine. So as they recover and as they're kind of getting used

to this, they're very grateful for the prayers. But that's just basically what he was asking for.

So for me, I got to switch one thing up, though. I feel really, really far away from everybody.

There we go. Now I'm like, I am so far away from everybody. You might have taken a little

row out since last time I was here. But for me, again, it's a blessing to be here. But as we

continue through our Roman series, it is honestly just a pleasure to be able to be able to preach

God's word in absence of, honestly, an awesome, awesome family. So again, I've loved watching

what God has done in Jasmine's life. So Jasmine showed up to Burton one day when I was a Burton

location pastor. And I actually found out when Jasmine and Pat were talking, I was like, oh,

man, she's leaving soon. But she's a good woman, and she makes a great pastor's wife.

And Pat, honestly, is doing an awesome job as a pastor. So it's a privilege to be able to fill in

for the pulpit for my friend. But for us today, let's pray. Let's see what God has for us this

morning. So Heavenly Father, Lord, we love you. Lord, just first off, thank you for Pat and Jasmine,

Lord, and just, Lord, you ultimately welcoming in a bundle, a miracle, a new life, Lord. Know

that you are creator, Lord. You know you are sustainer, Lord. But Lord, we lift up Pat and

Jasmine. We lift up Cade, Lord. We pray that ultimately you be with them, Lord. We know that

you have been knitting a little one before we even knew it. Lord, we lift up them. We pray you be with

them. Lord, allow us just to be able to bless them and love them and welcome them and help them be a

new family. But for us today, Lord, allow us to be able to focus on, Lord, whatever distractions,

Lord, as we already prayed a little bit earlier. Whether we're in the mountaintop, Lord, you are

the same God. Lord, the gospel is true. Whether we're high or whether we're low, Lord, the gospel

is true. Whether or not we're doing great or whether we're doing poor today. But Lord, today I pray

for every single one of us. We focus on you, Lord, so we can grow in our relationship with you. So

Christ, we love you. And Lord, we pray this all in your beautiful name. Amen. For me, I always love

Septembers and I love Januaries. Now for me, it's about weather. So I like when the weather starts

getting cold. Yes, I'm a Michigander. That's one of my favorite things because you actually can wear

clothes that are comfortable and they're heavy and it just feels nice. So I love September because

turning. I love January too because ultimately it's freezing outside. And man, that's when I'm

in like a game because again, like you rock a hoodie and like doesn't matter what it is. If you

rock a hoodie, you just look nice. And some of you are like, I like this guy. I understand this guy

is talking about. But also what I love about January and I love about September is we, for

the most part here at the River Church, is we try to focus on our vision. So you see it kind of like

on the little things, those little mirror things in the back lobby, you'll hear it

whenever we preach. But we talk about reaching the world with the gospel. That's the number one

thing that a church has to do. In my opinion, that is the most essential thing that if you call

yourself followers of Jesus Christ, if you are a church, if you're truly, truly, truly preaching

the good news of our Savior, the good news that Jesus Christ died on a cross for all of humanity's

sins, and that he didn't stay dead because he rose again in victory three days later,

and because putting our faith, our trust, our lives in Jesus's hands, we will be saved,

we will be repurposed, we will be made new, we will be rescued from death, and we will be made

glorious, living in his light, and we will be living life. I love that we start with reaching

the world. It's so important. So when we do things like, again, the baby pantry, when we do things

like trunk or treat, as Pastor Josh was talking about doing things like the widows and the single

house, we're not doing it just to do a program. We're not just doing it to do a good deed. Why do

we do it? Because it gives us the opportunity to be able to teach people, tell people, proclaim

people, love people to seeing the realness of Christ. I love that that's where our church starts

because then we also, we want to take people from being lost and we want to bring them to gather.

And we talked about this a little bit last week, like what we are doing here matters. It's not just

I'm going to church. I don't, that's why we don't say just come to church. No, we say gather,

gather with the saints. Why is it what we do here matters? Because honestly, what we do here matters

because again, you're here and there's somebody who needs your smile. There's somebody who needs

your encouragement. There's somebody who needs your handshake. There's somebody who needs you

for you to be able to look at them and say, good morning, because let's be honest with all of us.

Sometimes you just need somebody to encourage you. Sometimes you just need to feel like you

belong somewhere. And that's why I absolutely love gathering them because when Jesus puts it, say,

hey, we need to gather together. I love it because again, it's bringing people together. That's what

Jesus does.

But then this last thing that he brings up is grow and we need to grow in God's word. And a lot of

times I think when churches talk about visions, like it, it can seem so marketing. It can seem

so like upper echelon visionaries sitting in a corporate boardroom with a dry erase board. And

they're just putting fancy words, uh, on a dry erase board until they figure something out that

sticks. And that's not what we do here at the river church. What we do is we take the great

commission. If you got your Bibles, we're going to jump to Matthew chapter 28 really quick. But in

Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, it says, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority on heaven and

earth has been given to me. I like that emphasis because again, who is in control? Jesus. It's not

us. The illusion of control is very, very fleeting to us sinful people because we think we have it.

We think we understand. We think we can actually make an influence on this world. Now God does use

us to make influential, uh, influential decisions and we can help people. But in the reality is

who's really directing the pen. God, all authority on heaven.

And I love this because with all authority, with all authority, that everything that happens from

all time, Jesus says, go, therefore make disciples of all nations. That's that reach part. Hey, you

need to go into the world. You need to go make disciples. What does it mean to make a disciple?

You talk to them about Jesus. You come alongside of them and you teach them, but he says, baptizing

them in the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. So that's that gather part because

when we baptize, what are we all here for? We're publicly proclaiming. We believe in Christ. Now,

I don't want to assume that everybody,

knows Christ. I don't want to assume that everybody's saved. And if you don't know Jesus

as your savior, I would love to be able to talk to you about that. I don't like assuming just because

a group of people show up. Like if you generally are like, I still have some questions. I don't

quite understand why God would love me so much and send his perfect son to die on a cross for me.

If you still got some questions, if you still got it, those are okay. Bring those up. But what do

we do when we get together? When we, we gather, we're publicly professing. What is baptism? It's

a public profession. We're, we're, we're seeing that public profession of the realness of God.

But for us today, we're really going to be focusing on grow where Jesus says, make sure

that you're teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. What is Jesus saying? Everything

I taught, everything that I modeled, everything that I showed you guys, I want you guys to make

sure that you're teaching that, that you've observed it, teaching them all that to observe

all that I have commanded. So, hey, you need to make sure that you're taking this relationship

and you're sending it forward. So for me, like I love all things grow because I love Bible

questions. I love answering questions. I love when,

uh, every once in a while at a high school camp, middle school camp, what we'll do is we'll actually

like put like a, a question and answer box in front of the kids and be like, Hey, if you got

questions for pastor Ryan, feel free to put any question you want to ask him about life, theology,

the Bible, and Ryan will do his best to answer it. And honestly, like, I love it because you get real

gritty answer, real gritty questions. Like kids want to know truth. And I believe that to be true

about most society too. And one of my favorite things about these high school kids is they're

asked these questions. So I think sometimes as adults, what do we start thinking? Well,

can't ask those questions because then somebody might think I'm not as smart. Can't ask those

questions because you know what? Somebody might actually think that I should have learned that

at one point. No, it's, it's, it's always important for us to be able to answer questions for us to

always go back to the scriptures to learn that. So again, I love all things grow because I love

those questions. I enjoy talking with people about what they're learning and what they're growing.

My wife and I constantly like she'll, she'll wake up and she's very, very, she's probably better at

them, but she's always reading her devos and she'll always come up to me and ask me a question.

Hey, when the Bible says this, when Jesus says this, what are they really talking about? Hold

on. Let me, let me go read it and let me go figure that out. I love growth communities. I love seeing

what we do when we get people together, just learning about that. But the one thing that

I've always kind of gotten to them is while grow sounds really, really awesome. I think one of the

things that can happen though, is sometimes you can start believing that growing in your walk

with God is strictly academic for smart people. So people will go to Moody's

and Liberty's and they'll go to school. And man, the people who really know the Bible,

man, they're, they're, they're the ones who got the master's in divinities and they got their

master's degrees. And they're, they're the stupor deep theologians that can turn around and ask

people what their doxological views of the Trinitarian Godhead have to do with their,

their everyday response. And you're like, I don't know those words. Yeah. Sometimes neither do I,

but sometimes when we make growth strictly academic, I think we miss out on that

motivation of why we should be growing in our walk with God. Cause I don't believe,

but growing in your walk with God is strictly academic. Growing in your walk with God is

relational. Growing in your walk with God is not academic. It's relational. So for us, when we look

at grow, we can't just turn around and just say, Hey, read your Bible. It's a very important thing

to do. But if you ever been told, Hey, I'm really struggling in life. I don't know what to do. And

then the pastor sits with you and says, Hey, read your Bible. And you're like, okay, my marriage is

like falling apart. My, my kids are falling apart. I don't know what to do. And you're just telling me

to read your Bible. Like again, great answer. It's, it's, it's what the remedy is. It's what

the medication is. It's, it's what we should do. We should go consult the scripture. So again,

don't leave here being like that guy said, don't read the Bible. No, by no means am I saying don't

read the Bible. But when you're really, really struggling, if you pick up a book and you're like,

what do I do? You're really, really struggling in life. And someone's like, Hey, are you involved

in a growth community? And it feels like the, like the, the weirdest, cheesiest ploy to just

get you involved with more church programming. And it doesn't feel genuine. You're like, no,

I'm not, I'm generally struggling in life. Again, my, my marriage is falling apart. My anxiety is

taking over. Like, I just don't know what to do. And it's like, come to another program. Now again,

does that help? Yes. I genuinely believe when believers come together, Galatians six, we bear

one another's burdens. I think that that is 100% needed. But going back to that, like by just saying,

Hey, read your Bible, but Hey, come to a growth community. One of my favorite ones is when people

are really trying to like grow in their walk with God. They're super struggling. Like, Hey,

stress going on in my life. And then someone just like, yeah, stop sinning. Well, duh. If I could

have done that, I would have done that by now. But there's that walking that out when you're like,

okay, if you're just trying to grow and it's strictly academic, if it's just, I got to learn

something new, we don't typically grow. But when we look at growth is relational,

that's when we start seeing growth actually happen. So today, like I really want to look

at growth and how to make it personal, but I also want to make it profitable. So while we're,

not going to start necessarily in Romans, like I love Paul. Anytime I can read any of the Pauline

epistles, I love Paul because Paul was a guy who reminds me of me. Somebody who hated Christianity.

Somebody was walking around saying that he was right. Someone was walking around saying he was

the smartest person in the room. Someone was walking around who had passion about what he

believed in. And then he realized one thing really quickly. He was so utterly wrong. And then one day

Jesus showed up and changed his life. I like that story. That story was me. That story reminds me of

me. But for Paul,

somebody who turned around and hated Jesus, persecuted the church, turned around and came

to a real encounter with a real savior, genuinely met Jesus on the road to Damascus where he's like,

hey, Paul, Paul, Paul, why are you persecuting me? Is that you Lord? And what God did with Paul's

life after that is tremendous. And one of the things Paul says in the book of Philippians,

and I've always loved this. In Philippians chapter two, verse 17 says, even if I,

and to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith,

I'm glad and I rejoice with you. Oh, likewise, you should be glad and rejoice with me. But that,

that idea of pouring yourself out, this is Paul who's in the book of Philippians. He's,

he's sitting in a jail cell. He doesn't think tomorrow is coming. His circumstance will have

won and he will probably be put to death. That's where, that's where Paul's brain is. And he's

sitting in this jail cell and he turns around and says, it's like, Hey, if I'm going to die,

you know what? I guess what? I'm going to be poured out as a drink offering. This drink offering,

this is, this is that, that idea of,

of just, he's emptying himself out because he believes in this. But I like Paul's view here

because he's like, I poured myself out, but I like that. He says it's on my own accord.

I'm doing this purposely. I didn't accidentally do this. I woke up and I purposely am pouring

myself out to you all for what? Their faith. He's not just doing something for the sake of,

but again, I'm going to pour out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your

faith. I'm doing something.

For somebody other than myself, man, is that a message? Most Christians need to hear something.

We do something. We inconvenience ourselves. We make sure ourself is second. Why? Because

we're pouring ourselves out. I love this as the football analogy. And again, he, he, he emptied

himself out. He left it on the field. There was nothing left that Paul had. Why? Because he was

making sure that the person in front of him was taken care of. The person who would go next would

go in front of him. And it wasn't just like a moralistic, it wasn't just a life thing.

It was for their faith. I love that Paul here is again, he's awaiting death, but he has no regrets.

I left it on the field. I did what I had to do. I said what I had to say. I poured myself out for

your faith. He was talking to the church in Philippi. Paul, I knew my mission. I knew my

role. I knew my, I knew what I had to go do. He took the realness of go there, form eight

disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And remember, I'm with you from this day to

the end of the age. He took that realness and he poured out. I love this. He made sure that the

next generation, the next group of Christians, that next person who needed to come to know Christ,

whether they're old or young, had that. And that's why I say, well, when we look at this,

Paul, he was a disciple maker. He was taking care of people. And one of the things that we got to

always know though, is personally though, who did Paul take care of? Who did Paul disciple

personally? So this is that back into Romans moment. I love that little hit in Philippians,

Romans chapter 16. I've been caught up in the last verse of Romans. The last chapter just gets me

because it's, what's Paul trying to land here? But what he does is he starts calling out names.

So it's actually thanking a lot of people. Hey, this person, this person, but in Romans chapter

16, verse 21. So we look at Paul when he turns around and says, I poured myself out like a drink

offering, but what does he do? In Romans chapter 16, verse 20 to 21, he turns around and says,

Timothy, my fellow worker, he greets you. So Paul's in jail. Paul's always sitting around. Who is Paul

pouring himself into? Who is Paul constantly discipling? Who is Paul constantly making sure

that there was this personal level of growth constantly happening? Now you can take every

single person in Romans chapter 16, but for me, I like Timothy because you, what you see is you

see one, Timothy is located in other books of the Bible because Timothy becomes the pastor of

Ephesus, which is one of the bigger churches in the area. Timothy gets his own like, kind of like

shout out and two epistles from Paul. And he's literally looking at Timothy as a young pastor and

Paul is encouraging him. Hey, uh, keep close watch on your doctor. And he's like, Hey, you need to

make sure you run and Hey, don't let people despise you because you're youthful. But this is what a

church is supposed to look like. This is how you're supposed to conduct yourself. And Hey man,

I'm telling you to run. I love that Paul's journey with Jesus on this side of eternity

had people involved. It wasn't just Paul growing academically. It wasn't just Paul trying to grow

in big words. It wasn't Paul just trying to be able to recite things. What was Paul's most

important thing? He was trying to grow and he was growing relationally while he was growing with

Christ because growing in Christ is not a solo game. I don't want to say you can't grow in Christ

if you're not in community, because I think again, God brings the growth. That's what we see in

Corinthians. Do you've ever noticed when you're really, really growing good and your walk with

God, there's generally people around people who are encouraging you. People are helping you. So

when the Bible says iron sharpens iron, there's people in your life who are coming alongside of you.

Again, maybe you don't like the conversations that they're having, but you know, it's like,

man, this is that good conversation. So some young people in the room, again, we, we, we definitely

don't like when our parents tell us what to do. It will pay dividends. Trust me. You might not like

it now. I got a 10 year old. I'm seeing that right now. He does not understand. I'm like, Hey,

you got to wear jeans to church, man. You can't just rock sweatpants all the time. You gotta look

nice. Why do I got to look nice? I was like, cause one day you're going to actually want to go to a

dance with a girl and you can't show up in sweatpants, man. Why would I want to show up in

sweatpants? I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, but I'm starting with my 10 year old son that I'm,

I'm trying to help him. I'm trying to see him grow for us for with Paul. I love that in Paul's mind,

he sees this opportunity to grow. And for me, the, the, the, the, the, the, the hang up I see

with growth is generally, we're not constantly filling up and we're not constantly pouring

ourselves out. So somewhere in that flow, you got to kind of be able to look at God and figure out

where you're at. Because if you're here, if you're constantly filling yourself,

what's going to happen is you're going to get to a brim. You're going to get to like that,

that spot where you can't walk anymore. And you just keep trying to grow. You keep trying to go

like, why, why am I hitting a roadblock? Well, because you got to go up, but in order to

constantly grow, if you're being constantly filled up by Christ, if you're constantly being filled up

by growth community, by people encourage you, if you're constantly being filled up by the scriptures,

you're going to get to a point where you're too full. And one of the best ways to turn around

and continue to grow is then you got to pour yourself out into somebody. So I think there's

two areas of what happens in growth. There's some people who are like, I don't know, I don't know,

who just don't get themselves constantly poured into. They're not filling themselves up. Church

is an extracurricular activity. We come in and again, we, we, we, we came in on a gathering and

we worship the Lord. We did our thing. We check off our box. There's our Sunday activity, the

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, nothing else to be filled up. We are

constantly walking with Christ. That's why the book of Thessalonians says we pray without ceasing,

but every day we should be doing something with Jesus, for Jesus, around Jesus, through Jesus.

We should constantly

be looking at that idea. If we genuinely want to grow in our walks with Jesus, it can't just be a

Sunday thing. I say it all the time. I, I, I wish I had arms like Dwayne, the rock Johnson. Like

again, the dude's like ripped out of his gourd. I wish I had that physique, but I can't lift one

20 pound dumbbell one time and be like, dude, there's the guns. Like it doesn't work. It takes

constant work. It takes dedication. It takes discipline. So if you want to grow, it takes

the same thing. But if you're trying to grow in your walk with God,

are you constantly allowing yourself to be filled up? And I'm talking genuine filled up,

not TikTok theology, not Instagram stuff. I'm talking about genuinely sitting there,

opening God's word and reading it, struggling through it. I can't pronounce half these people's

names, but I'm still going to keep going. And if you're like, oh my gosh, he's right. Yes. Cause I

struggle too. Also, if you want a tip, if you're ever in a Bible study, you run into somebody's

name, that's hard. Just say whatever you think it is. Nobody will ever correct you because they're

not sure either.

So again, there's, there's your, there's your heads up of the day and, uh, moving forward,

nobody will ever correct you. But with it, are you filling yourself up constantly? And I think

that's a struggle for Christians. I think that's a struggle for the church because it takes

dedication. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes, you got to look at your schedule and say,

you know what? I'm going to prioritize something else and the results are in the future. So let's

be honest with none of us like future results. Again, like if working out and dieting was easy,

we'd all be doing it. You see the results in the future.

That's the same with your walk with God. You might not see the results the day after like,

I'm in, I'm anxious. I'm stressed out, man. My marriage is falling apart. My kids are being

crazy. Dear Jesus, be with me. Nothing changes on that moment. Of course not. Sometimes it takes

time. It takes dedication. It takes continually running after it. So I got to ask you, are you

filling yourself up? You constantly take time into filling yourself up. But then the second thing,

again, to create this flow, but do you pour yourself out? And when I say pour yourself out,

what do I really mean? I purposely and actively,

actually helping somebody in their walk with God. Purposely and actively turn around and going out

of your way to encourage somebody, to love them, pray with them. Because one of the best things

ever is when you actually find that person who needs encouragement, they need love,

start seeing them grow. Because what are you doing? You're being poured into by Christ,

who is an unlimited well. And in Psalms 87, it says, singers and dancers alike,

all my springs are in you. Again, if you're constantly being poured into by the Holy Spirit,

by the realness of scripture, then you start pouring yourself into others. What happens with

them? Well, one, you see them start growing. And then the key is to get yourself out of the way and

get them kind of closer to God. But then what happens with you? I've never heard somebody who's

ever been upset serving Christ. When our hearts are in it, we're genuinely looking at, man, I get

the opportunity to preach the gospel to somebody. I've never heard somebody be like, man, I'm so

frustrated. I had to tell somebody that Jesus loves them. When do you see that? We're going to

have trunk or treat in a couple of weeks. When do you see that? When do you see that? When do you

see that? When do you see that? When do you see that? When do you see that? When do you see that?

Again, we're going to turn around and pack this room full of kids, full of families. We're going

to invite the neighborhood out to be in here. And what's going to happen? Nobody's going to be like,

man, I'm so upset people came and heard the gospel. Those chairs got moved. If we have teenagers

running around in this building and one of them puts a hole in the drywall, but we had 20 teenagers

here. Yes, frustrated to put a hole in the drywall, but at the same time, we had 20 students here.

There's like 10 kids over in our river kids gathering right now. If they made noise as somebody

going to be upset. No, because they're being poured into, they're growing in their walks with

Christ. So for us, I look at this and I think we got to be able to establish number one, who is God

to you? God, just the person who's like hanging out. And then like, again, you pull them in when

you need them. There's God, you're everything. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to

So man, if you want the best answer ever, go, go to the scriptures, go to Jesus because he knows

everything. He controls everything, but you got to look at yourself. Are you letting God pour into

you? Go into the scriptures.

Are you reading? Are you praying? Are you serving? Are you giving? Are you living obediently?

I think one of the things that gets us more often than not, who are you pouring into?

Parents, here's the easy one. It's your kids. It's not your kids. Start. A little four-year-old

son walked out to my wife this week and just doing the dishes. And he just looks off and he's like,

mom, you know that Jesus died for our sins? I knew that. He's like, did you know he rose again

three days later? Yes, son, I did that. Okay. And then he just like scampered off like every

four-year-old does. I have no idea where my son picked that

truth up. I know we've talked about the gospel. I know we pray. I know we do our Awana verses. I

know we do those things, but I have no idea when that idea, that truth became a reality for him.

That's the beautiful thing about when you can identify who you're pouring into. You have no

idea when it'll take off. And parents, if you're doing the things that you need to do, keep doing

them. The Lord's word does not return void. It'll click at some point. We just don't get to control

when. But if you're here and you're like, man, I don't know who else I can pour into. Again,

this is why going to growth community is so important.

There's somebody at a growth community who needs you there. God has ordained it for you to be able

to be there, sit next to them and say hi. And again, God has an opportunity for you to be able

to pour into that relationship. Can't think of that? There's kids right over there. We constantly

always are asking two things together in the church. Hey, we'd like to get people connected.

And hey, do you know this thing called the nursery? Can we get some help here? It's the

constant struggle of church. I was talking to another pastor who said the two biggest grinds

are preaching and the nursery ministry. And I'm like, that's actually accurate. Because again,

get done preaching. And then guess what? Sunday is coming back around. You get done working with

the babies. And then guess what? Sunday is coming back around. But if you're ever looking to be able

to pour into a little one, if you'll teach them about God's truth, it's there. It's there. So for

us today, as we're looking at this, we got to go back to this essential thing. What are we truly

pouring in? Because Paul started relationally, because he relationally knew who God was. And in

Romans 8, chapter 5, verse 6, it says, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for

the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good

person, one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us that while we are still sinners,

Christ died for us. That's not academic for Paul. That's relational. And because it's not academic

for Paul, he wanted to make sure Timothy knew that this was not just an academic truth. This

is a real truth that Jesus Christ died for everybody. And he made sure he taught Timothy

that. But then we can see that while Timothy is

growing up, and he grew up, and again, potentially without a dad, we don't see a dad in scriptures

for Timothy. We see that, again, Paul probably had to navigate through some difficult things

with Timothy. But then Paul also turns around, and in Romans 8, verses 38, it says, for I am

sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,

nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us

from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's not academic. There's relational truth.

So for you, if you're looking to grow in your walk with God, are these relational truths for you?

Be strictly academic. I know that verse because I remembered it in Ilana. These are scripture. This

is God's word, will not return void. This is the scriptures that are powerful, that are so powerful

that it can separate bone from marrow, flesh from soul. Again, this is God's ordained word that'll

stay true for all of eternity. But if we're trying to grow, is this a relational truth for you,

that Jesus Christ loves you so much that he died for you? And if that's the one truth

you continue to allow, allow, just continue to grow, continue to grow, continue to grow,

keep growing in your relationship with him. But then there's that tricky thing. When you're pouring

out to somebody, it's that way you're pouring out. Pour out moralism. Pave your modification.

It's going to be really easy for us parents sometimes to turn around and be like, Jesus wants

you to obey me. It's true. Jesus wants you to have a clean room. Not so much. But some of you are like,

oh my gosh, that's happened to me in my life. But for us, we got to look, what are we genuinely pouring into people? Is it just

academic? Is it just preferences and moralism? Or is it genuinely the realness of our relationship

with Christ? I think that's one of those things, again, like fathers, I want to challenge you.

Fathers, that's one of the most important things for you to be able to show your wife, for you to

be able to show your kids, you're going to show the congregation. Like again, men genuinely worship

is the most important thing to be able to see. And that's not trying to undercut any type of woman

who's worshiping, anything like that. But man, a dad showing the realness of who Jesus is, oh, it's beautiful. But for us today,

I want to challenge you. If you're looking to grow in your walk with, a lot of us will always go,

I got to fill myself up from Jesus. Yeah, you do. But you got to fill up, then you got to pour out.

If you're trying to grow in your walk with God, if you want to fill up, because in Psalm 23, where it

says, again, you prepared a table before me and you, in the presence of my enemies, you anointed my

head. And I love this last fact again. Psalm 23 says, my cup overflows. For those of you who are

looking to grow in your walk, those of you who know Christ, like for parents, I really want to push this.

For, for, for husbands, I really want to push in this. For, for couples to really push into this.

Again, if you genuinely want to see that abundance, that overflow, that meant that what Jesus has for

you, if you genuinely want to see what it looks like when you genuinely grow, this is where I do

come back to it. Growing is not academic, it's relational. So while I said they weren't the

prescription, we do have some awesome things like growth communities here on Wednesday. If you're

hearing like, but I got a kid. Yeah, guess what? We have this thing called a WANA that's running

parallel to our growth community. So you can drop your kids off and you can

go grow. We have adult growth communities that meet across the board. If you can't find one on

a certain day, again, I guarantee we can find different days of the week. Growth communities

are so important. For you, reading your Bible every single day, one of the most important

things you possibly can do. But my challenge for you today, very simple. If you're genuinely

looking to grow in your walk, if you're here and you know Christ as your savior, keep filling

yourself up. Stay constant, stay consistent, stay dedicated. But then when you got a chance,

if you're too full and you realize you hit that wall, maybe it's time for you to find a person

Dear Heavenly Father, we love you. Lord, just thank you for who you are. Lord, thank you for

your love, your grace. Lord, thank you that you're merciful. But Lord, for us, we're trying to

navigate this side of eternity, Lord. We praise you for giving us your word. Lord, we glorify you

for having everything in control. But Lord, as we're trying to figure this out, Lord, pray that

we never forget to grow in a relationship. Lord, I pray that we never make the truths that are found

in the Bible just academic or, Lord, apologetic. Lord, I pray that we just allow your scriptures

change us from the inside out. Lord, there's so many people that probably need Paul in our life.

Lord, please give us the eyes. Give us the heart. Give us the love for one another, Lord, where we

genuinely want to seek each other out and pour the goodness, pour the truth that we have received

from you to pour that real relationship that we received you, Lord, into other people. Lord,

help us be loving. Help us be kind. But Lord, allow us to continue to grow in likeness and in deed.

So Jesus, as we come back to worship you, Lord, I pray that we ultimately are able to know that

And Lord, we are all moving closer to you.