I have to admit this first Sunday of the year is always a bit of a stumper for those of
us in pastoral ministry.
We're never really sure how to approach the first Sunday.
It's just sort of an interesting time.
On the one hand, some of us have this strong desire to get rolling into the new year, but
on the other hand, there's this competing desire, this sense of we need to recover from
the holidays, right?
This fatigue that comes from the holiday season.
A lot of us have had time off, but then it's also been filled with travel, and it's been
filled with lots of parties and get togethers and lots of time spent with friends and family.
You might think that those things would rejuvenate us, but as we all know, they usually aren't.
They're good things, of course, but oftentimes they drain us as well.
For those of us who are in the business of planning ministry, we usually decide to take
the first Sunday of the year and not dive into something brand new, not just yet, but
instead to take some time to look forward together into the new year as a church family
to see what God might do in our lives over the next 12 months.
As I say that, by the way, just so you remember, next week we're diving into a brand new expository
preaching series in the book of Titus.
Get your hearts ready for that.
Today is different.
Now, as we approach the new year, I have a question for you.
How many of you guys would consider yourself planners?
Do we have any planners out there?
Okay.
How many of you guys actually like making New Year's resolutions?
Oh, groaning.
See, some of you guys are wired for those things.
You get so excited by the idea of sitting down on the couch with a notebook, with your
calendar, your planner, you're already, you know, you put in your holidays and your birthdays
and your vacation time, it's all penciled in, and now you're like, I'm going to set
some goals and I want to create some to-do lists.
You're already strategizing about how you can accomplish great things in the new year.
And by the way, I think that's wonderful.
But for others of us, that is not appealing at all.
Right?
I'm not alone.
It's not appealing at all because it's not just how, it's not how you're really wired.
Now, you may have some things in mind like, okay, there's some things I'd like to improve
on or there's some projects I'd like to finish in the new year, but you're not one of those
people that formalizes it in any way.
So we're different.
And this morning, whether you're a planner or an anti-planner, I do want to make the
case that every single person in this room this morning should make it a goal to grow
in the year 2025.
And so as you can see by the title on the screen, we are looking this morning at a biblical
vision for growth.
Now this is not going to be a sermon about growing the size of our church.
Sadly, when you hear the term growth today in church culture, that's often the first
thing that people think about because, you know, we're in this era of mega churches and
everything always has to be bigger, right?
We need to grow.
I'm talking about actual biblical growth, both as individual worshipers and biblical
growth together as a church family.
So I'm talking about spiritual development.
I'm talking about increasing in spiritual maturity.
I'm talking about deepening our abiding relationship with Christ.
And practically, I'm talking about bearing more spiritual fruit that shows up in our
lives, practically shows up in the way we think and the decisions that we make and in
the deeds that we do.
That's the type of growth that we want to talk about.
Now it's true that when a church does that, when a bunch of saints come together and we're
all focused on that goal of growing as worshipers and growing as a church family, it's true
that often a church like that grows in size and scope because it's filled with a bunch
of vibrant people who are growing.
But we don't want to put the cart before the horse by making numerical growth the goal
of our ministry.
That's never been the goal here at Oak Hill and it never will be that we're just seeking
after numbers.
To paraphrase a very famous pastor, we strive to increase the depth in our church and then
we let God determine the breadth of our church.
That's always been a driving principle at Oak Hill.
We aim to increase the depth amongst the saints here in the church, but we let God determine
the breadth of it.
And that is precisely the message that I want to make sure comes through this message this
morning.
There's principles in scripture about this subject, about growth, that if you just look
at it with an untrained eye, you might think these are contradictory statements, but they
actually work hand in hand.
Let me give you some examples.
First of all, famously in Psalm 90-12, Moses writes this.
He says, teach us to number our days that we may present to you, Lord, a heart of wisdom.
Now we read that and we think, okay, well good.
So that's telling us we need to start carefully planning all of the time that we have.
Plan, prepare, do all of that stuff, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, throughout the
whole year.
We need to be about that.
But then we come to a verse like Proverbs 19-21 that says, many plans are in the man's
heart, but the purpose of the Lord will stand.
And that seems to indicate that we can plan all we want, but at the end of the day, our
plans don't really amount to anything because God sovereignly does as he pleases in the
life of his people and his church.
So two important verses, two important principles, how do we fit them together?
And the truth is it's really not an either or choice.
It's a both and.
This is a both and.
We strive in our planning to honor the Lord.
We strive to grow in spiritual depth, but all the while, we know that ultimately it's
God's purposes that are going to prevail.
Amen.
So what I want to do this morning is expose it to fairly familiar New Testament passages
that I think are instructive for us as a church about how we look at the year to come in 2025.
And then at the end, we're going to get super practical.
I want to share a whole bunch of things that are on the hearts of our elder team, the things
that we talk about at our elder meetings, you know, those mysterious meetings where
we get together, where we talk about things in our body that we're interested in seeing
growth happen in this particular church body in 2025.
So let's start.
Grab your Bibles.
Let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter three.
So two sort of sides of a single coin this morning.
And the first side of the coin comes from 1 Corinthians three.
And we're going to start at the very top beginning in verse one.
Now most of us know that Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church is a highly corrective
letter because there's a lot of problems going on in this church.
He does not hold back in reprimanding the body of Corinth for a whole long list of things.
They need to be corrected.
And we're going to see that right here in the first nine verses of this chapter.
Verse one says this, and I, brethren, could not speak to you as spiritual men.
But as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food,
for you were not yet able to receive it.
Indeed, he says, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly.
So Paul's addressing men and women who are members of this church in Corinth.
And my guess is like so many churchgoers today, they've been attending services occasionally
and they've been coming to some church events and they've been building some relationships
in the body and yet something is not healthy about their walk with the Lord.
There's something not healthy here.
Now Paul doesn't question their salvation.
He says at the end of verse one, they are in Christ.
But the thing that marks their walk with him is immaturity.
Right?
They're infants, he says.
Infants in the faith.
They're in need of growing up.
And he says, look, we have fed you the basics of the faith.
The milk of Christian doctrine.
You know what the gospel of truth is.
And I have no doubt that they were being taught well by the apostles and by the teachers in
this church.
Right?
They were hearing the basics of doctrine on Sundays.
They were hearing it in private conversations.
They were hearing it in their small groups.
But still Paul says, I can't speak to you as spiritual men and women in practice.
Because they weren't submitted to the Holy Spirit.
They weren't being led by the Holy Spirit.
It was still their flesh.
Their personal wants and desires that were leading them.
Leading every decision they make.
Leading the way they think.
It's their flesh and not the spirit.
It's their appetites.
Their wants.
And they're showing a lack of restraint and self-control in that process.
By the way, if you're a parent, you know that this is exactly what characterizes an infant
or even a toddler.
They always put themselves first.
Right?
Have you ever had a toddler walk up and go, no daddy, I would like to serve you instead
of you serve me.
Now this is how toddlers act.
They always put themselves first.
All that matters is what they want in the moment.
No self-control.
No restraint.
No concern for putting the needs of others before themselves.
And that's what Paul likens them to.
These believers in Corinth.
So what's a parent to do with a toddler or an infant?
How do you raise them up?
So with great patience, we keep correcting and disciplining and teaching and encouraging
and praying.
Right?
Parents, you're doing all those things?
And that was Paul's life in calling in the church to do all of those same things among
the churches that he had planted.
With great patience, keep correcting, disciplining, teaching, encouraging, praying and hoping
for the saints that were participating in body life in those churches.
And honestly, when I was looking at this last night, I thought to myself, this is actually,
this is the story of every single pastor in every single church.
Because we all sort of have to work through this frustration as leaders and teachers in
the church, knowing that we strive with everything we have in us to make sure that we're teaching
well, that we're exhorting and correcting and encouraging and building up.
And yet we know at the end of the day, some of the sheep just aren't going to grow.
They're going to remain toddlers.
And so it's my job as a pastor not to get frustrated by that, not get discouraged by
that, not ever give up, but keep doing those same things with great patience, correcting,
disciplining, teaching, encouraging and praying and hoping for the best for every single person
that walks in those doors.
That's my job.
Now continuing in verse three, Paul goes on to describe a unique symptom of this fleshliness,
this infanthood that's happening in the church of Corinth.
And thankfully, I have really good news this morning.
This is not a problem for us at Oak Hill, this particular problem.
And I praise God for this.
Look at verse, the end of verse three.
He says, for since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly?
And are you not walking like mere men?
Isn't that interesting?
You're not walking in a divine way, you're acting like just fleshly people.
For when one says, I'm of Paul, and another says, I'm of Apollos, are you not acting
like mere men?
So the members of the church of Corinth are lining up behind their favorite teachers and
they're boasting in them in such a way that it's creating all kinds of quarrels and divisions.
Oh, you think Apollos is a great teacher?
I think Paul's better.
What a silly thing to fight over, right?
And as I said, this is not a problem at Oak Hill.
Nobody's out there lining up behind me and saying, oh, Jeff's better than this other
elder or vice versa, we don't have this issue.
By the way, this is one of the best things about Oak Hill.
I've never been a part of a church that is so unified in the way we love each other.
The lack of drama in this church is stunning.
I mean, if you know people who go to other churches, you know this is true.
You hear just awful stories, you're like, yeah, we're pretty much united.
So it's really a beautiful thing.
So I thank you for that.
Now here's the point of Paul bringing this up, this issue of, look at verse five.
He says, what then is Apollos?
And what is Paul?
Underline the next word, servants.
Look, are they apostles?
Are they important?
Are they great teachers?
Yes.
Paul says, we are servants through whom you believed even as the Lord gave opportunity
to each one.
So I can echo Paul's words.
What then is Jeff?
What then is Grant?
What then is any elder or teacher in our church?
Just servants.
Just servants, striving imperfectly to care for this body of believers, striving to teach
well so that we grow out of infanthood and grow towards maturity.
As the teaching pastor here, I'm nothing more than a servant through whom, Paul says, you
believed.
Or if you came to Oak Hill as a believer, I am just a servant through whom you are being
fed truth, through whom you are being exhorted and corrected and instructed to grow in your
faith.
That's all I am, a simple servant.
That's all we all are as leaders.
None of us are the means or the power by which you believe or grow.
Can't say that loud enough.
It doesn't matter if you think one of us on the elder team is a very talented teacher.
We are not the means or the power by which any of you believe or grow.
And if you want a good illustration for this, I read this years ago and it made a ton of
sense to me.
How many of you guys have copper pipes in your home?
Okay, are you thankful for your copper pipes?
Yeah, they're great.
But they're just conduits.
What really matters is the water that comes out of the pipes.
Because it's the water that nourishes you and sustains you.
You can still really be like, thank you for the copper pipes, but it's the water that
matters.
Leaders in the church are like those pipes, we're just conduits for truth.
But it's the truth that matters.
It's the truth that nourishes you.
Does that make sense?
That's important.
Now verse six is key.
I, that's Paul speaking, I planted, Apollos did what?
He watered.
But God was causing the growth.
So then Paul concludes, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything.
But God who causes the growth.
So God's always the decisive factor.
Always.
In faith, in growth, not any man, not any teacher, no matter how good they might be.
And note the agricultural metaphor that he uses here.
Now again, back in the first century, most people were farmers.
This was obvious to them, but less obvious to us today.
But planting is a particular work.
And the reference here is the Paul who's out there planting churches all across the Greek
world right in the first century.
Through his efforts, God was busy producing, saving faith in these Gentiles in the Greek
world through him.
Paul wasn't doing it, God was doing it through Paul.
And then the watering was the work that Apollos took on once Paul left because Paul didn't
like to stay in one place too long.
He wasn't a local pastor, he was a missionary, he was an apostle.
So he would take off and men like Apollos would step in and they would water.
And what God was doing through Apollos was producing spiritual growth in these infants
who needed to grow up.
Are you getting the picture here?
They're tag teaming this, it's very important.
Now before we go any further, let's talk about this biblical word growth.
It's a very important word.
What does Paul mean when he talks about growth?
Well the original Greek word is oxano.
It's a word that you find fairly frequently in the New Testament, 23 times.
And it's almost always translated either grow or growth or increase.
Now sometimes it's used in a very simple way to talk about how the lilies of the field
grow or a seed that is planted grows into a tree.
It's even the word used for when a child grows up.
But at other times it's attached to some very important theological statements.
Let me give you some examples.
First in the book of Acts, that word is used to describe how God's word was spreading and
increasing among the early disciples in the church.
Then we have in 2 Corinthians 10 a reference to how the same word is used to talk about
how the faith of the saints is growing.
In the book of Ephesians, and we heard this in the call to worship this morning, this
word is used to describe how we as believers, listen now, grow up in all aspects into Him
who is our head, who of course is Christ.
We find the word used repeatedly in Colossians 1 and 2, speaking of how the gospel had come
to the believers in that city, says bearing fruit and increasing among them.
How the believers in Colossae were increasing in the knowledge of God and how we should
hold fast to the head from whom the body grows with growth that is from God.
So you're starting to see a trend here.
Finally, Peter uses this word in both of his epistles.
He writes like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word so by it you may grow.
And then he speaks of growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.
So all of those verses, all the use of this particular word in the Greek, lets us know
what the biblical writers envision when they talk about growth.
And it's always connected to knowing Christ on a deeper level, abiding with Him, knowing
His word, moving towards spiritual maturity, bearing spiritual fruit, and to things like
grace and faith.
So that's what the biblical writers mean when they talk about growing.
Interestingly, you don't see any of this related to growing in numerical size.
It's always growing in depth as individual worshipers.
Make sense?
Are you with me?
And using Paul's metaphor, this type of growth is produced through watering.
How many of you guys like the garden?
Are you like me?
Do you spend way too much time, especially in summer, out watering?
It's important, otherwise what happens?
Things die.
They die.
Okay, good.
That was not a trick question.
But this is what pastors and elders and teachers are called to do in the church.
We're to water the church.
Now it's funny, Grant's gonna laugh at this.
He contacted me two days ago and said, what do you want to title the sermon?
I said watering the church.
And he laughed at that.
He said no.
That just sounds weird.
And I get that.
But really, watering the church is a truth and a reality because watering a plant does
produce growth.
I love gardening.
Ask my wife.
I spend far too much time in the backyard with a hose.
But I love it.
And I've seen this for myself.
Water has all these amazing functions which causes growth.
It produces, how many of you guys remember Ross, help him out, photosynthesis.
What year was that in school?
Eighth grade maybe, something like that?
Really that, five, fifth grade.
Okay, fifth grade.
That's the process which allows plants to convert sunlight into energy.
And we know that water is essential for root development and root growth, right?
As the plant absorbs water, it creates a pressure in the roots that drives them deeper into
the soil.
And when they go deeper into the soil, you see more growth on the outside, right?
Water also plays an essential role in transporting minerals and nutrients from the soil to different
parts of the plant.
It also, water helps to regulate temperature so plants don't wilt, especially in the heat
of Santa Clarita.
And as you hear that, I hope you hear all the comparisons with spiritual growth.
God knows what he's doing when he gives us metaphors like this, especially from agriculture.
As believers, we're energized, I'm not going to say photosynthesized, but we're energized
by teaching.
Our spiritual roots develop and grow deeper into the soil with good teaching.
Through teaching, we're nourished and by it, our spiritual temperature is regulated so
that we endure and we don't wilt.
So there's so many amazing comparisons here.
So I want you to hold on to that thought of watering because we'll come back to it later.
Now back to our text, there is an interesting tension now in verse seven that we should
resolve.
In other parts of the New Testament, we're told that leaders and teachers should be honored
and appreciated.
But verse seven seems to say something different, but don't get confused.
The reason that Paul says that leaders and teachers are not anything in this context
is specifically tied to results, spiritual results.
You should honor and appreciate those who teach and lead you.
But compared to God, who provides 100% of the power to grow, people like me are nothing.
And I'm okay with that because I can't produce the results.
And that is the point that Paul is making here.
Now go to verse eight.
Now he who plants and he who waters are, are what?
Are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
So here you see Paul talking about this unity and oneness.
And listen, servants who lead and teach in the church should be one, whether they plant
or whether they water.
We should all have our eyes fixed on the kingdom, fixed on Jesus, not to building our own little
kingdoms.
And this is a problem we see in the church today, right?
We should all be looking at Christ and his kingdom, not building our own little fiefdoms.
Always pointing to him and not drawing attention to ourselves.
That is a huge problem in our culture today in this sort of celebrity pastor culture that
we live in.
We're not to draw attention to ourselves.
We're always to point people to Christ.
So we're to be one in that.
We're to be one in love, one in purpose, one in mission, one in our dependence upon God,
one in love for the sheep, and one in our teaching of the essentials of the faith.
That's what Paul's getting at here.
So Paul says to the Corinthians, look, me, Apollos, Peter, pick any of us.
We are one in all of these things.
So don't make us, don't make us the means for you guys having quarrels and divisions.
And then in verse 9, our last verse, we see Paul now switch metaphors, and it's very interesting.
He says, for we are God's fellow workers, me, Apollos, Peter, all of us, we're fellow
workers, you are God's field, that's the planting and watering.
But then he says, you are also God's building.
So Christ is building his church as a great temple for his glory, and guys, every single
one of you here who's found in Christ, you're part of that building.
Sometimes we forget that.
Christ is building this superstructure, this thing called the church, and we are all a
part of that.
Now, we don't have time to go through it today, but Paul's going to go on to talk about this
structure that's being built and how it's built on a particular foundation, the only
foundation that's valid, that arises from that foundation.
But the picture's the same, whether you're talking about agriculture or construction,
the picture's the same.
Planting the field corresponds with laying the foundation.
And then watering the field corresponds with building the structure.
That's a picture of growth.
One is a picture of the base, and the other is a picture of growth.
Does that make sense?
Okay, so that's part one of our study today.
I want you to hold that thought, because now we need to look sort of at the other side
of the coin.
So we're going to go to James chapter four.
James chapter four.
And then drop down to verse 13.
Now, James is another one of those letters where there is a ton of warning and correction.
And James has just been warning the early church about the wickedness of our tongues,
the way we speak to each other, so be careful.
And then he's also talked about the things that cause quarrels and divisions among us.
And now in verse 13, he gives us another warning.
He says, come now, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such a city and spend
a year there and engage in business and make a profit.
So James is reprimanding folks in the church who are actually acting in a way similar to
those Corinthians.
They're just out there doing their own thing.
They're planning their lives, being led by the flesh and not considering God at all.
Right?
They're acting like spiritual infants, not being led by the spirit.
So what do they plan to do?
Five things that these people are absolutely sure of.
Ready?
When I'm going to leave, today or tomorrow, where I plan to arrive at such and such a
city, how much time I'll spend there, a year, what I'll do when I get there, engage in business,
and finally what the results are going to be and turn to profit.
Now every time we read this passage, there's this logical question that pops up in our
brain.
Hold on a second now.
Does that mean we can't plan a trip?
Are we not supposed to plan a trip?
Are we not supposed to make any plans about what we do when we get there?
No.
But hold on to that thought because let's see what else James has to say.
Verse 14, yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.
That's the day he planned to leave, right?
You don't know what your life's going to be.
You're just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Now everybody in this room understands this principle.
We see it played out every day.
Our life is a mist that appears and then disappears very, very quickly, right?
And the point that James is making is that our lives are utterly fragile.
They could be taken away today, right, for everyone in this room.
And we should know that.
So if you're planning, if you're looking down the road, James says, you have to take this
truth into account.
You are a vapor.
Now that doesn't mean stop planning altogether.
In fact, we know in other places of scripture, planning and investing is actually honored
by the Lord, right?
So it doesn't mean we should stop taking the future into consideration at all.
By the way, it also doesn't mean that we should just become hermits because some people do
this, right?
They'll take a truth like this and go, well, I guess I just need to sit in my apartment
and be a hermit and wait till the vapor of my life ends.
Okay, so we don't want to do that either, right?
The point is, if we've truly adopted a biblical worldview, it means that the fragility of
life is going to inform and shape the way we think about the future, right?
This fact that we are a mist or a vapor is going to inform the way we make plans about
our future.
And you should know this.
Your mindset matters to God.
Your worldview matters to God.
He doesn't want you to just go and do things, just go and do things with your physical body.
He wants you to go and do those things with certain attitudes and convictions in all things
because we do all things to the glory of God.
And part of that is remembering how short life is and how we should hold all things
loosely because life is so short.
Just in case God has a different plan than you planned for, right?
Or a different road.
He says, look, I know you've got these plans.
I have a different road for you and I'm always good.
It might be hard, but it's good for you.
And that's what I've ordained for you.
So we hold all things loosely in light of the fact that our lives are a vapor.
Then verse 15 is the positive exhortation.
Instead, here's what you should do, he says.
You should say, if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.
So that is the correct heart posture that Christians should have.
Whenever we look at making New Year's resolutions or we talk about planning for the future,
if the Lord wills.
Now that doesn't mean just tacking that statement onto everything that we want.
I know I've done this.
I'm guilty of this.
We've all done this, right?
We say something really bold, bordering on boasting, and then we go, oh, if the Lord
wills.
Right?
And we sort of catch ourselves.
It's not a magic formula.
We can't just make all these plans and just tack that on.
The question is, do we really mean that if the Lord wills?
Do we really mean that we'll submit to God's will and give up our own?
Do we really mean that?
It's not Christianese that we just tack on for the sake of sounding good.
It's an actual heart posture.
Yes, we should say it out loud, by the way, as a reminder to one another, because that's
the instruction here.
But the words from our lips are less important than whether or not we affirm that in our
hearts.
Because when it's true in our own hearts, what are we basically saying?
God is sovereign and I'm not.
God is in control and I'm not.
And we're acknowledging that the days that we have on the earth are in His hands.
All of our movements are in His hands.
All of our vacation plans are in His plans.
All the things that we want to accomplish, they're all in His hands.
And the accomplishments, the results that come out of it, especially are in His hands.
And these things matter to our God.
He's good, right?
And He's going to direct us, but we have to make sure that we're submitted to His will.
Now, is there a deeper problem behind just not saying or thinking or feeling Lord's will?
There is a deeper problem, right?
Look at verse 16.
Here's the diagnosis that James has.
As it is, you boast in your arrogance, he says.
And all such boasting is, heavy word, evil.
The root problem behind this planning, this casting a vision without considering God's
will is arrogance.
It's pride.
And in the grand scheme of things, James says it's actually evil.
So that's a serious warning, right?
Now let's be clear again.
Everything is okay.
Doing business is okay.
Making a profit is okay.
The problem is pridefully ignoring God's will and believing that you can control it all,
that you are sovereign, right?
Just so we get the balance there, right?
Because I know we have a tendency to like swing the pendulum, get the balance right
here.
It's thinking that you can in your own power make things happen according to your will
rather than submitting all of your plans and all of your days to the Lord's sovereign hand.
By the way, Jesus talked about this too.
He tells this great parable in Luke chapter 12 about a rich man who'd run into a really
good problem.
His crops were doing so well that he had no more space in his barn.
So you may remember this passage.
Here's the parable.
Jesus says, and this man began reasoning to himself saying, well, what should I do since
I have no place to store my crops?
And he said, this is what I will do.
Now, catch all the I wills in this.
This is what I will do.
I will tear down my barns and build larger ones.
And there I will store all of my grain and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come.
I've got plenty, he says, for many years to come.
So take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
We know how the story ends, right?
But God said to him, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you.
And now who will own what you have prepared?
So it's a reminder that God controls the future, right?
We can make all the plans we want, but God controls the results.
And I want to share with you something this morning.
Apart from his sovereign will, there is no security in this life.
We can fool ourselves, numb ourselves into thinking we're secure.
There's no security.
We've seen this just recently.
We're just one terrorist attack away from tragedy, right?
We're just one economic crash away from ruin, right?
Even in a nation, I mean, we can sometimes fall back on, yeah, but we're America.
We're so big and powerful.
Listen, that can fall apart in a day.
We live in a very unstable world right now.
So what are you trusting in this morning?
Where is your security rooted?
Or are you just around, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
I can control it.
What are you trusting in this morning?
Years ago, I read this really short but insightful blog article from a Christian author.
I'm going to read a portion of it to you.
She describes herself as one of those type A planners.
You guys know who I'm talking about, right?
No comment.
But after years of her battling her own will in her planning, she came to this wonderful
realization.
Let me read to you what she realized.
This took years, she said.
She says, I'm out of control.
I mean, that's a good start.
She says, I literally do not have control of my life.
I can get all my ducks in a row and create a foolproof blueprint for the year or the
month or the week ahead.
But no matter how disciplined and diligent I am, it never goes the way I think it should.
Anybody else?
Typically, it goes something like this, she writes.
I make a plan or set a goal that's good and healthy, maybe even holy.
Then something happens that diverts my course and I have to shift.
And this is what I've learned.
Here's the big idea.
This is what I've learned, she writes.
There's nothing wrong with making that shift.
Even though it means I failed to accomplish my original goal, I actually accomplished
something better.
I followed where God led me, even when it was in a different direction than I had planned.
I adjusted my goal to align with His will.
Sounds simple, right?
But not easy to do.
And then she finishes, to be honest, I don't always do this.
I don't always attain such faithful flexibility.
Sometimes I dig in my heels and stubbornly attempt to do it all, to fulfill my own desires
while simultaneously obeying God's commands, even if that is completely impossible.
It's hard to let go of the reins sometimes, she writes.
But I think I can truthfully say that I've improved over the years because the more I
know God, the more I trust Him in the perfection of His ways.
Now that will preach.
That will preach, right?
Can we all affirm that that is a good word for every single one of us, especially Americans,
especially our type A planners?
That's a good word.
Okay.
Now, let me just summarize, we have two important principles at work here.
This is where I want to head as we talk really practically.
Two important principles.
First, we have the example of Apollos and Corinth.
We are to water the church.
And we're to do that through excellence, through solid teaching, through biblical worship,
through rich fellowship, through exhortation and correction, and building one another up
and practicing the one another's.
We have to plan and prepare and strive to do all those things, right?
Those are things we're commanded to do in Scripture.
We have to strive and do that.
And yes, trust me, as elders, we are planning to do these things well.
We are preparing to do them well.
We want to strive to do them well.
And yet at the same time, we cannot get ahead of God.
We cannot get ahead of God.
We dare not say, well, we're going to do this or that this year at Oak Hill without saying
if that's God's will.
This is what we call the limiting principle, right?
You can cast vision all day long.
You can say we're going to plan and prepare.
This is the limiting principle.
If God wills.
And by saying that in our hearts, we're acknowledging that even if our plans are good and healthy,
even holy, God may turn us in a different direction.
Yes, we need to have that faithful flexibility.
Guys, it's not that long ago that COVID hit us.
Did you talk about having to be flexible?
Have we forgotten that lesson?
We had great plans for that year.
Kaboom.
Gone.
Diverted.
You know, recalculating.
Yeah.
So can we hold all things loosely here at Oak Hill and trust that the Lord is going
to be good and faithful no matter where he takes us?
And it may not be anywhere we expect to go right now.
Do we keep planning and preparing?
Absolutely.
But then we hold it all loosely and say, okay, Lord, if it's your will.
Does that make sense?
That's really, I know it's a simple message, but that has got to get ingrained in our heads
and hearts because we all have our own idea of what ministry should look like in a local
church.
So we strive and we plan and we prepare, but then we trust the Lord for the results.
Okay.
As I wrap up, let me just share with you then a list of things that are on the hearts of
your elder team here at Oak Hill.
Things that we see, we've talked about this at our meetings, room for growth in our body.
Things that we can focus our attention on in 2025 as we plan and prepare and as we open
our hands to say, all right, Lord, this is what we see, but if it be your will.
Amen?
So if you or I were to, if we were going to create a list of resolutions, I know some
of you guys are completely against this, but hang with me here.
If we were going to create a list of resolutions for the new year, the highest priority on
every one of our lists is an absolute no brainer because it comes straight out of scripture.
And that is to once again return to our first love.
To come back to Christ, to rekindle a passion for him and for his kingdom, to put Jesus
at the center of our lives.
And to illustrate what this should look like, I want to just give you a picture.
That is what we call a wagon wheel.
And a wagon wheel is one of the most simple, simply constructed things you can imagine.
There's really just three parts to it, right?
There's the outer rim, which, or the tire.
There's the spokes in the middle, and then what's that thing at the center called?
What is it called?
The hub.
Dave?
Where's Dave?
That's called the hub, right.
The hub is clearly at the center of the wheel.
Nothing works without the hub.
And then the spokes are connected from the hub to the tire.
Now, if your life were organized as a wagon wheel, I know that sounds strange.
If your life was organized as a wagon wheel, what would be at the center?
What is the hub of your life?
That's actually a more complex question than you can imagine.
But be honest with yourself right now.
What is it the hub of your life?
Biblically, we know the answer.
It's got to be Christ and his kingdom.
That's got to be at the center of every Christian's life.
And then the spokes of the wheel represent other things that are also very important
in life.
Because our lives are not, they're multi-dimensional, right.
There's a lot of important things in life.
But there's only one thing at the center.
So the spokes represent important things.
Our spouses, our children, our friends, our jobs, our homes, our hobbies, our free time,
all kinds of things, right.
And they spring out of the hub, which is Christ.
And it's he who gives shape and meaning to all of those important spokes.
Does that make sense?
It's a simple illustration, but I think it's very important.
Here's the problem now.
For far too many professing Christians today, Christ and his kingdom are not at the hub
of their lives.
They are.
They have put themselves at the center.
They are their own hub.
And they'll say, but Jesus is one of the spokes.
The kingdom of God is one of the important spokes, but I'm at the center.
That's just the reality.
I've been there.
Look, I've been there myself.
There are times when I put myself at the hub.
But Christ is God.
That's his place.
That's his throne.
So for those folks who are at the center of their own lives, guess what?
Christ and his word are no longer giving shape and meaning to the important things in their
lives.
They are.
They're shaping it.
They're forming it.
Scripture doesn't drive their priorities and choices.
I'm going to come back to it.
They are like spiritual infants.
They are driven by their own fleshly appetites and desires, not by Christ and his word, because
they're at the center.
They've put themselves there.
And so for a lot of Christians today, church is a good thing.
It's a spoke, but it's a compartmentalized thing here on the side that I occasionally
dip into.
But that's not the design.
It's not how Christ has designed it.
So look, I'm going to serve and I'm going to care and I'm going to dip my toe into body
life here on occasion when it sort of fits into my life.
It's hit or miss.
It's subject to my personal needs and my wants, which makes sense.
If you're at the center of your life, that's the way your Christian walk is going to be.
That's the way your life in the church is going to be because you're on the throne.
And it's a tenuous place to be.
This is my warning.
This is the warning part.
That's just a practical reality.
And we've all been there at times.
We just need to keep, look, we need to look at that hub or that the chair on the throne
and keep getting off of it.
You're saying I don't belong here, Jesus does.
But it's a tenuous place to be.
So this is the warning.
When you're found in Christ, Paul says, you are not your own.
You've been bought with a price.
That's a hard reality.
We love the fact that we've been redeemed, but Paul doesn't leave it there.
He says, no, you're not your own.
You don't get to sit on that throne.
And Jesus himself addressed this.
He said, seek first what?
The kingdom of God.
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the spokes will be added unto you.
I'll handle all that, but seek me first.
Put me in the hub.
Amen.
So as we look at resolutions for the year, if the wagon wheel of our lives is improperly
built and is faulty, that's the first adjustment we need to make in 2025.
Because everything else springs from that.
We've got to fix that construction in our lives.
Next, next thing on our hearts for some of you, and I'm going to give you a list here.
For some of you, it may be time to really consider moving towards membership in the
local church.
We've had lots of visitors at Oak Hill in recent months.
It's been so great.
We love seeing it.
It brings a great smile to the faces of our elders to see them all.
But there comes a point when every single Christian has to say, all right, I need to
move beyond attending.
I need to move beyond just watching to actual participation.
Right?
Look, you may love attending here.
You may enjoy the worship and the fellowship and the teaching and all that, and you keep
coming back, and that's wonderful.
But I think there comes a time where the Spirit's going to ask you, say to your heart, are you
going to commit?
Are you going to covenant with an actual body of believers?
Or are you just going to stand on the outside?
Are you going to actually dive in and start living out the one another's which are commanded
in Scripture?
Commanded in the New Testament, loving, serving, caring, giving, encouraging, building up,
showing hospitality, stirring up, exhorting.
These are all things we are commanded to do in the midst of an actual body of believers,
not theoretically, but an actual group of believers.
So let that be a point of prayer for some of you in January 2025.
Am I ready to move from dipping my toe in the water to diving all the way in?
I knew that one would get some silence.
Okay, second thing, some of you are members.
You've committed to membership, but still, you're not as integrating in body life as
you could be.
You're not putting the energy, the time, or the heart into integration in the body.
And so there's a lack of consistency, a lack of presence.
And I'm going to say something hard.
You're allowing others to minister to you without reciprocating.
You're benefiting from all kinds of ministry from other people, but you're not giving it
back.
And by the way, this is a weakness in every single church on the earth, but it's something
we need to talk about.
We all need to be joining in the one another's of scripture.
So this is a good point of prayer for some of you.
Why am I holding back right now?
I've joined, I've signed a covenant, but why am I holding back?
Is there something that's blocking me from really diving in all the way?
Make sense?
Next, let me share a few quick issues again that the elders have taken note of, things
that we, areas that we can grow in.
The first one is prayer.
I think there's a great deal of room for growth in Oak Hill in terms of becoming a truly praying
church.
A church that we pray for ourselves, we pray for one another, we pray for the Lord to move
amongst us.
We're praying for our leaders.
We're praying for spiritual fruit to be born.
We're praying for outreach.
We're praying to see unchurched people come to know the Lord.
Are we a praying church?
I think there's a lot of room for growth in this particular area, and we can exhort one
another, right, to do this more because the prayers of a righteous man, of a righteous
woman avail much.
And if we, if we don't have, oftentimes it's because why?
Because we haven't asked.
So prayer.
Here's a tough one.
How about biblical parenting?
We have a few children in our church.
I don't know if you've heard this.
Never an easy subject to tackle, but becoming more and more necessary every year.
How are we doing?
Parents, how are we doing at aligning our strategies for parenting with what scripture
says?
Are we being more driven by the latest trends, the latest magazine articles, the latest blogs,
or are we lining up our parenting with what scripture says?
Are we being consistent with those principles?
And are we not judging others as we come to conviction, we're not judging others about
how they're doing in this area and letting the Holy Spirit do that and not trying to
play the Holy Spirit?
There's a lot of dynamics here, but this is something that we should make a point of prayer,
biblical parenting at Oak Hill.
Next let's talk about our goal to become more consistent in looking outside the boundaries
of our church, right?
Can I just say that one of the things that is so great about our church is we love the
fellowship here.
I hear it all the time.
We love each other well.
That's literally the tagline of our church.
Love each other well.
And we do it and we love our church and it's a rich fellowship.
But oftentimes when that happens in a church, it's a good thing, but we fail to look outside
because we're so satisfied within and we're not really thinking about the unchurched.
So friends, who are we building relationships right now that we can invite into this rich
fellowship, right?
Are we building relationships with coworkers and friends and neighbors that we can invite
into this fellowship so that they can see what it looks like to be part of a healthy
body?
Guys, people are hurting out there right now.
Did you know that they're struggling right now?
We have answers.
They want peace.
They want to overcome anxiety.
They want to know what's going to happen in this world.
They want security.
We have answers.
We just have to start conversations.
I thought last night I was like, we have this amazing evangelism table we call ambassadors
well at the mall twice a week.
By the way, we're the only church in Santa Clarita that does this.
Little Oak Hill.
Out there starting conversations about spiritual things.
And it hit me, what if so many people in our church volunteered for that ministry that
we had to start another one or two?
And we had three different tables all over Santa Clarita starting spiritual conversations.
We need to look outside the boundaries of our church.
There's another thing on the hearts of our elder team.
Setting up the next generation of elders and deacons and ministry leaders here.
Creating a pipeline of people who are committed to stepping up into service in the body.
And so here's a challenge for every one of you.
Are you on a path towards maturity where at least someday, someday you might put your
hand up and say, put me in, coach.
I'm ready to help.
I want to become a leader.
I don't maybe not even know what that looks like right now, but you go to somebody on
our elder team or one of our deacons and say, what do I need to do?
Are you on that trajectory, that path to say someday, you know what, I'm not going to rely
on other people serving me, leading me forever.
Someday I want to be the one leading.
That's not an arrogant thing if the Lord wills, right?
But to say, I want to move towards maturity so that I can lead and I can serve, especially
as I get older.
Now there's a whole long list of other things we could talk about this morning.
That's just sort of a short list, but these are really important points of prayer for
us as a body, areas we can grow in.
Now I'm going to leave you with one last one, and this is going to be a surprise, but I'm
going to, I'm going to cast a vision and say, if the Lord wills, I want to bring up this
last one.
How do we found a building of our own?
We've been talking more and more about this at our elder meetings.
Look, we're content.
God has given us this, PICO has been very good to us, the New Hall School District,
very good to us.
This is a great facility.
There's a lot of really great things and we'll be, if God wants us to be here for another
18 years, we will say, thank you Lord and be content.
But there's nothing wrong with starting to pray big and to say, Lord, what if you gave
us a gathering spot of our own?
Listen, this is not, this is not about we're going to buy a $5 million piece of land and
do a fundraiser and raise $20 million.
We're not going into debt like that.
All we're talking about is a lease somewhere that we could get into a place that we could
gather on our own.
Here's the point.
It would be so transformative for our ministry.
Right now we pay, we pay a lot of money for this place and we get it for five hours, five
hours a week we get this place.
What if we had a place, we actually had seven days a week.
How much would that change the ministry here?
Again, I don't want to get ahead of God.
I want to see if the Lord wills.
All of that stuff.
We get that, right?
But what if we started praying in this direction?
What if we had our own children's classrooms?
What would that mean for our acorn ministry?
What if we had a place to gather for member communion, a place for community groups, a
place where we could do counseling and discipleship, an actual church office for staff?
I mean, I know you all love my home office and all when you FaceTime me, but it's home.
But to be able to do all of those things in our own gathering spot without changing our
DNA, that would be very important because we've always been a nomadic church for 18
years.
We have been, but it'd be a great challenge for us both financially and practically.
Right?
And again, we can be content, but we serve a great God.
So it's okay to ask and just say, if you will, Lord, this would be really a blessing for
our body in so many ways.
All right.
So I just put that out there and say, look, we want to be a praying church.
Let's pray.
Right?
And in fact, I want to wrap up our message on that note and ask you to just bow your
heads and let's pray about some of these things together.
Can we do that?
Father, I thank you this morning that your word is so practical in so many ways.
The way it instructs us on how we should view the future, the mindset that we should have,
the worldview that we should hold in our hearts related to the days, the months, the weeks,
the years that you have ordained to give us.
And so Lord, we take seriously our responsibility to do what we can down here on earth, to water
the church and to strive and to plan and to prepare to grow in this coming year.
But Lord, we also take seriously James's warning about making sure that we align our will with
your will.
So we want to do that together with one voice this morning as a body.
Help us to find that healthy balance.
Help us to trust in your sovereign outcomes for us, both in our individual lives and for
our church body.
Lord, we trust you.
We know you are good.
We know you are faithful.
And whatever result you want to give us, we will take it because it's from your hands.
So help us to hold things loosely, Lord.
God, help us to put you first in all things, to make you the hub of our lives.
For those who would consider moving towards membership, Lord, would you convict hearts
if that's your will?
For those who would consider becoming more integrated into body life to not just dip
a toe in but to dive all the way in, if that's your will for them, Lord, will you convict
their hearts?
God, as a church, would you give us a greater emphasis on praying, which speaks to our trust
in you, speaks to our acknowledging your sovereignty?
Help us to pray more.
Help us to be more concerned about the unchurched here in Santa Clarita, to look outside the
walls of our church, even as we celebrate what you're doing inside our church.
Father, would you give us guidance by your Spirit in our parenting that you would convict
us on the principles that we should be living by?
Guidance in raising up the next generation of leaders here at Oak Hill, Lord, would you
point people in that direction and give the elders eyes to see?
And God, for the possibility, if it be your will, that we might identify a building of
our own that we might be able to lease and enjoy seven days a week and that might increase
the effectiveness of our ministry and our lives together, if that's your plan, Lord,
if that's what's going to be best for us.
Lord, we just lay that at your throne and say, Lord, this would be the desire of our
heart.
But all of these things, Father, we submit them to you.
We submit them to you and we trust in you.
And Lord, we look forward.
I look forward to one year from now, if it be your will, that I would be able to stand
up behind this pulpit and say, look what God has done.
And we would celebrate you, not celebrate what we've done, but celebrate what you've
done and that we give you all the glory for it.
So Father, help us to be a praying church, help us to take these things outside of this
building this morning and continue to lift them up to you again for your glory and for
our good, we pray.
Amen.